


Trace Evidence

by geothebio



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Couch Cuddles, M/M, Newt is a sarcastic little shit, Possessive Behavior, Protective Original Percival Graves, Slow Burn, graphic description of violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-18
Updated: 2018-02-05
Packaged: 2019-02-03 19:02:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 26,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12754302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/geothebio/pseuds/geothebio
Summary: Newt works as a freelance criminologist for a local police precinct in New York, and also works as a professor at a college for criminal justice. Lately, some of the profiles he's been assigned just haven't been adding up.





	1. Blood on Asphalt

He was deep in sleep, completely relaxed. He had term papers to grade in the morning, but otherwise he was looking forward to a free weekend, something he rarely got to enjoy. Just as his brain finally decided to let go of his thoughts and shut itself down, an irritated buzz rang through his ears.

He peeled open his bleary, crust covered eyes to see what all the fuss was about. It was his phone. Damn it.

He reached across his bed to his nightstand to look at the screen of his phone. It was two in the morning. Tina was calling him; that was never a good sign. He waited a few rings to mourn the impending loss of his weekend and finally hit the "answer" button on his touch screen.

"This is Newt," he said, his voice barely coming out in a hoarse scratch.

"We need you downtown," Tina's voice came through the small speaker, followed by the familiar sound of sirens. 

"You're going to need to be more specific, Teen," He yawned, and took a sip from the room temperature glass of water he had set next to his phone the night before, clearing his scratchy throat.

"You know I hate that nickname, Scamander." she scolded him.

"You can blame your sister for teaching it too me then," he grinned into the phone before continuing, "Which downtown do you need me in?"

"Hell's Kitchen," Tina stated sternly.

He glanced at the alarm clock on his bedside table to double-check the time, "I'll be there in about an hour."

"Good, I'll text you the address. Oh, and Newt?" Tina seemed to hesitate slightly before continuing, concern laced through her voice, "Prepare yourself. This one's...different."

She promptly hung up, leaving a very confused Newt to squint at the bright screen of his phone in the dark bedroom.

Different? What could possibly make this crime scene different enough for her to warn him about it? After all, a corpse is just that: a corpse. He's seen just about everything there is to see in this line of work. The fact that Tina was so worried about this was making anxiety creep up in the pit of his stomach.

As he got dressed, that feeling got even worse. He _never_ got nervous before going to crime scenes, not since he was a newbie. He made sure to pack a bottle of ice cold water and a granola bar, since he was certain that this was going to go past breakfast. He made sure that he had packed his kit full of everything that he was going to need, throwing an extra pair of latex gloves in for good measure. He tossed his kit and his breakfast into the back of his car, and pulled out of his parking garage. The car ride ahead of him made him so nervous that it gave him stomach cramps.

\-----

He pulled up to the neighborhood in Hell's Kitchen roughly an hour later, and when he arrived, the air was polluted with what looked to be every police light in the city. An officer, whom he did not recognize, directed him to a parking spot after Newt had shown him his badge. He cautiously pulled himself out of his car, taking his kit with him, and was guided over to a blockade of police cruisers.

As he approached the cars, from in front of the blaring red and blue lights, he recognized the silhouette of Tina Goldstein. She was talking frantically to someone on the phone, and when she turned around and spotted Newt, she quickly ended the conversation and hung up.

"Newt, thank you for coming!" She breathed, sounded absolutely haggard.

"You know this is my _job_ , Tina," he yawned, "But I would do anything for you."

"British prick," she mumbled, shaking her head, "You ready to go in?"

"You haven't exactly given me any... information on this," he said, re-adjusting the strap to his shoulder bag.

"Get your gloves on," she said, giving him a signal to follow her into the scene, "What we already know is that the victim's name is Mary Lou Barebone, she's a parishioner at a prominent local church and the runner of a local orphanage. She appeared to have been attacked earlier this morning in an empty alley after walking home from a late night sermon. What we don't know... is how she died."

Tina led him through a wall of disgruntled looking police officers to face the horrors ahead. As he ducked under the yellow tape, he saw the woman lying motionless in the middle of the alleyway. Bright fluorescent lights illuminated her, and were almost blinding against her ghostly pale skin. A massive pool of blood laid underneath her, her shoes had been knocked off her feet and were tossed aside carelessly, and her purse's contents were strewn across the asphalt. 

"None of her belongings were taken," Tina piped up as Newt pulled on a pair of gloves and began to inch closer, "Her wallet, ID, credit cards... everything is still here. Even her jewelry."

She was right, a quick look around the scene more than confirmed that. Upon closer inspection, her shoes had not been thrown, but instead had fallen off; probably during the struggle. But... that was the thing. He crouched down beside the body to inspect it. Her arms... they didn't have a scratch on them. There wasn't a single defensive wound on her body. The most struggle she appeared to have given was kicking her shoes off.

"Are there any signs of a struggle that I'm missing?" he lifted his head to to meet Tina's eyes.

"What do you mean?" Tina asked.

"I mean," he stood back up from his crouched position, "There are no defensive wounds, nothing of value was taken, and nobody in the area heard any screams, correct?"

"That's right," Tina crossed her arms, shifting on her feet, "The body was found by a homeless man. We interviewed local residents and none of them heard any sort of disturbance."

"So she was surprised," he answered back, stepping over to the other side of the body to get another angle.

He crouched back down to meet the face of the woman. Her face was completely blank, ghostly white, and her eyes were glassy and wide open. He carefully prodded the woman's head to lift it up off of the ground when he saw something that startled him: a wound. Her neck had two small puncture wounds, which were precisely aligned with the carotid artery, and were probably the source of all the blood. He moved his face closer and saw what appeared to be...tooth marks. It looked human, and the two puncture wounds were aligned with where the canines should be. The other tooth marks didn't pierce the skin, but were deep enough to have left an angry red set of marks.

"Tina!" he shouted.

"You see something?" she rushed over to him, being mindful to not disturb any evidence.

"Can you get dental records off of this bite mark?" he asked.

"Bite mark?" she stooped down to get a better look. "Well, we can damn well try to get dental records."

She flagged down a photographer and a couple other investigators to get to work. He stood up and let them do their thing, deciding to carefully survey the remainder of the scene.

"You see anything else?" Tina asked.

"No..." he paused, thinking hard, "There's... nothing. The only wound on this woman was a bite mark. A human bite mark. She didn't put up a fight, and noting was taken, so it can't possibly be a robbery gone wrong. The attack appears to be completely random, as she was surprised from behind. And her skin is so... pale. She lost a lot of blood."

"Well, I'd say she probably bled out," Tina gestured towards the large pool of blood.

"No, no. That amount of blood... that's nowhere near as much as she would have had to have lost to die from blood loss," he said.

"So you're saying....that she's _missing_ some blood?" Tina asked.

"I would say so, yes. Judging by the bite mark," he said.

"Newt," Tina was beginning to sound very frustrated, "You know that vampires are just an urban legend, right?"

"Yes, I am very aware of that," he tilted his head towards Tina in annoyance.

"So we're dealing with some sort of cannibal blood thief?" she threw her hands up in anger, "What kind of person bites another person before stealing their blood?!"

"I don't know, Tina," he exhaled, "Just... finish this up and send it off to the coroner. Let me know what pops up in the autopsy report."

"You're just...leaving?!" Tina exclaimed.

" _Yes_ , Tina, I'm tired," he said, pulling off his gloves and zipping up his kit, "It's six in the morning, I have papers to grade, and I need my beauty sleep."

He didn't wait for her to respond, simply slinging his bag over his shoulder and marching back to his car. On his drive back to his apartment, something in the back of his head was bothering him, something Tina had said.

_Vampires._

He knew that he was being ridiculous. There was no such thing as vampires. He was sure that there were a million different scenarios that any one depraved human being could have gone through to cause this kind of crime scene. But... something still didn't sit right. That bite mark was done with near surgical precision. Either they were dealing with a very perverted doctor, or something... unknown. As he pulled into his usual parking space, he knew that there was no chance that he was going to get back to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know i already have one unfinished fic but gdi i refuse to let this ship die


	2. R&R

He carefully unlocked the door to his apartment, exhaling a sigh of pure exhaustion as he stepped inside. He didn’t even bother kicking off his shoes, he simply dropped his bag on the ground where he stood and hung his keys on the hook next to his coat rack. He took a look around his dark apartment, trying to decide whether or not to try and get a little bit of sleep.

He decided to give up on that dream, and he walked over to his coffee machine, turning it on and waiting for it to heat up. Normally he preferred to drink tea on the weekends, but judging by how dead tired he was, it was going to have to be a black coffee kind of day. He grabbed his favorite mug, slid a pod of his favorite dark roast coffee into the machine, and pressed the button to brew it. At least he had this simple pleasure on this dogshit weekend.

As his coffee was pouring, he looked over to the pile of papers on his desk. He had assigned an essay on blood splatter patterns and he was looking forward to what his students had to say. He turned some of the lights on and opened up the curtains to try and brighten the place up a little bit. He sat down at his kitchen table with his boiling hot coffee, pulling the pile of essays towards him to begin grading.

This was the last assignment of the fall semester, and he could tell. Some of his students really half-assed it, but he decided not to grade them too harshly, since a lot of them were just plain tired of schoolwork and were ready to go on winter break. There were two or three essays that were some of the best he’s ever seen come out of this class, and he had a moment of pride in himself for not completely failing to teach properly. For a first year introductory class, they were all doing quite well.

By the time he had finished grading, it was well into the lunchtime hour and his coffee had been long gone. He looked into his empty mug with disappointment, the bags under his eyes still weighing heavy on his face. His stomach gave a very loud grumble, yelling at his body to eat something. He decided to go out to get some lunch, and more coffee, obviously. Some fresh air ought to do him some good.

He decided to change into a more casual outfit that didn’t… smell like crime scene. He threw on some comfy joggers and an old t-shirt, pulling a beanie over the back of his head to try and keep his ears warm. He slid on his favorite blue winter coat, grabbed his keys and wallet, and made sure to slip his phone into one of his pants pockets just in case. 

As soon as he stepped foot out of his apartment complex, the ice-cold wind blasted him in the face. It felt amazing. It felt good to breathe in fresh air that didn’t carry the stench of blood and death. Well, as fresh as New York City air can be, anyways. The constant smell of piss and cigarette smoke was almost refreshing, at this point.

He took his time with his walk, plugging in his headphones and listening to his favorite radio station. With his hands cozy and warm inside his woolen pockets, he walked the three blocks to his favorite café, which was owned by Tina’s sister, Queenie, and her husband Jacob. The jingle of the bell above the door as he entered was music to his ears.

“Newt! My favorite customer, how’s your weekend been?” Jacob greeted him cheerily from behind the counter, as he was displaying a fresh batch of pastries behind the glass case under the register. 

“Oh, you know,” Newt said casually, “The usual. Grading papers.”

“No murder this time?” Jacob asked.

“There’s always murder, Jacob,” he sighed in response.

“Ah,” Jacob stood back up from the display case, “What can I get ya today, then?”

He ordered a caramel latte (with _four_ extra shots of espresso) and a turkey sandwich. He had brought his laptop with him, so he decided to park himself at a table near the cozy fireplace that stood in the middle of the café. Queenie was wiping off some tables and had spotted him sitting down, her face sparkling with delight at the sight of him.

“Newt, sweetheart!” she bustled over in his direction, “I feel like I haven’t seen you in here in months!”

“It’s… only been about a week,” he looked up at her through a bite of his sandwich.

“Pff,” she huffed, sitting in the chair opposite him at the table, “Time flies when you’re having fun, I suppose. Speaking of fun! How’s Teenie doing?”

“I saw her this morning, actually,” he said, taking a sip of his coffee. It felt like sludge going down his throat, and the steamed milk and sugar syrup did nothing to mask the massive amount of caffeine, but at this point he was sure that his blood was 50% coffee and he didn’t care.

“Ooh, what’s she been up to lately? She hasn’t been to visit us in a while,” she said, resting her chin in her hand.

“Well, when I saw her she seemed pretty stressed,” he replied, “The case she called me in for was… a little strange to say the least.”

“Fill me in on all the _drama_ ,” she grinned dramatically.

“I mean… I do recall Tina calling me a _British prick_ , if you call that drama,” he started, “but other than that, it’s just… your standard woman who got attacked in an alley. As far as I’m aware there are no suspects.”

“Hmm,” Queenie seemed disappointed, “You never have any fun murder stories.”

“Murder isn’t _fun_ , Queenie. It’s _murder_.” He stated bluntly.

A loud clang sounded from the kitchen.

“I better go help Jacob,” Queenie got up from her seat and ruffled his hair, “Take care of yourself, honey.” 

With that, she left a flustered Newt alone with his coffee. He looked back down at his laptop, a blank web page open. He thought back to what he told Queenie about the case just a minute ago. _Standard_. This case was anything but standard. He opened up a Google page.

He felt like an idiot, sitting in a café drinking coffee that was as thick as molasses, and Googling the phrase “are vampires real?”. He might as well call himself a professional conspiracy theorist, because that was what he was starting to look like. There _had_ to be a more logical solution to those bite marks. Could it have been some sort of psycho sexual predator? No, there were no signs of rape. No biological evidence. The killer left _nothing_ … Except the bite marks.

It was as if Tina had read his mind, because his phone was screaming its familiar buzz from inside his pocket. He answered on the second ring.

“Tina, you have anything?” he asked.

“That’s the thing, Newt,” thankfully, she sounded a lot less tired than she did earlier that morning, “We managed to pull a full set of teeth from the bite mark.”

“…And?”

“ _And_ … there was nothing,” she replied, “We couldn’t match the dental records.”

“You’ve _got_ to be shitting me,” he sighed, running his free hand through his hair and leaning back in his seat.

“But wait, there’s more,” she continued, “The DNA team managed to pull _saliva_ off of the wound. There was absolutely no match.”

“None? No match whatsoever?!” he said, “Did… did it come back as human?”

“You still on about that vampire bullshit?” Tina sounded annoyed, “Newt, of _course_ it came back as human, the lab confirmed it. The bite marks lined up with _human_ canines.”

“I know, I know,” he exhaled.

“Good. Can you come in tomorrow?” she asked.

“Tomorrow is _Sunday_ , Tina,” he said, “I have a lesson plan to put together for next week.”

“Tough titties, your students can color with crayons for all I give a shit,” she snapped, “Be here. Tomorrow morning.”

He didn’t have a chance to reply before she continued.

“And do me a favor and get some fucking sleep, Scamander.” She immediately cut off their call.

He set his phone down next to his laptop and stared up at the ceiling. He downed the rest of his coffee and knew that he would regret consuming this much caffeine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm procrastinating writing an essay so i wrote this instead whoops


	3. Neurosis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this short chapter is from the perspective of Graves! the point of view will change back to Newt in the next chapter, don't worry.

The asphalt was cold and gritty against his cheek. His eyelashes felt heavy, and his clothes were soaking wet. He forced his eyelids open, and he slowly lifted his head up to try and bring his surroundings into focus. His head spun, but... not with fatigue. His head swirled with  _energy_ , he felt...  _alive_.

His hair flopped down in front of his eyes, dripping with a dark liquid. He looked down at himself, quickly realizing that what he was covered in was not water.

_Oh, fuck. No. No, no no._

His surroundings started to blur into focus and he realized that he was lying in an alley. It was damp, dark, and it smelled. It smelled of  _blood_. The taste in his mouth was sharp and rusty. He scraped his face off of the ground and pulled himself upright, blood dripping from his chin as he did so. He propped himself up against the nearest wall and looked around.

There was no body. He must have dragged himself far enough away to where no one would have noticed him. There were a few bloody handprints, but as far as he could see, he didn’t leave too much of a mess this time. At least he was getting more efficient… it only took four hundred years. He looked up from the ground and saw something that made his stomach drop: blue and red lights.

He had to leave without being seen. A guy stumbling down the street away from a crime scene covered in blood was _not_ a good look. He looked at the outside of the buildings that immediately surrounded him.

_One of these buildings must have a shower_ , he thought to himself. He needed to get cleaned up and find a change of clothes.

He picked himself up and on to his feet, and decided to pick a building and roll with it. If anyone noticed or attacked him, he knew he had the advantage. He looked around for an entrance and spotted a door atop the fire escape. He climbed up, trying his best to remain silent, and tried the handle. Of course it was locked. He did a double check to make sure no one was around, and gave the door one good shove with his shoulder, busting it open. Thankfully no one was on the other side.

The hall in front of him was completely dark, and he skimmed his hand over the wall to try and see his way around. He made his way to an area where there was a little light poking in from a nearby window, and he saw a landing to a stair case. There were voices one level below him, and he snuck over to the bannister to try and get a look at who was speaking. 

There was a couple, presumably drunk, and presumably fighting. They weren't shouting at each other, but they were talking rather forcefully, and the both of them looked as if it was quite difficult for them to stand. They would be easy targets. However, before he had a chance to descend on them, the two of them shut their apartment door and began to drunkenly stumble down the stairs together. The one thing that caught his eye, though, was that they had conveniently neglected to lock their front door.

He waited for them to be completely out of sight and earshot, and he carefully climbed down the flight of stairs and slipped into their dark apartment. He couldn't smell any pets, and he crossed that off his mental list of things that could possibly give him away. He did spot several empty alcohol bottles, which explained why they were so drunk. He made his shower as quick as possible, and disposed of his bloody clothing in the trash can in the pantry. If the police searched their trash, they would have to take the fall for him. They were simply two drunken strangers to him, it didn't matter.

He rooted around a bit in the couple's dresser, looking for some sort of clothing to cover himself with. The man's clothing was just slightly too big on him, but it was better than nothing. He tried to pull out the plainest looking black t-shirt and dark jeans he could. He wasn't able to steal a pair of shows, however, because the stranger's shoe size would never fit him in a million years. He thanked his past self for choosing to wear a dark pair of shoes this time. On his way out of the bedroom, he spotted a worn leather motorcycle jacket, and decided to grab it. He would look out of place being outside in the winter without a jacket on.

He made a hasty exit out of the apartment, and exited the way he had come in, making his way silently down the fire escape.

He walked out into the cold street, looking to see which direction the police lights were coming from. It looked like they were at least five or six blocks up from where he was. He walked in the opposite direction, cursing himself as he tried to put as much distance between himself and what happened.

God damn it.

This was the _third_ time this month that he had fed.

He used to only feed once a month. He needed to find a more permanent solution.

"Get ahold of yourself, Percival," he muttered to himself.

Just as he rounded a corner from a crosswalk, something stopped him in his tracks. 

_That smell._

It smelled wonderful. It was warm. _Human_. He knew he wasn't hungry, but... it was intoxicating. He put his nose to the air to get a better whiff.

This... person. They smelled of honey, warm and golden, and it drew him in like a moth to a flame.

But, suddenly, the smell was cut off to him. They had entered a building, or possibly a vehicle. He _needed_ to find out who that smell came from.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i finished my essay, in case you were wondering


	4. Corpus Delicti

He slammed the door to his apartment behind him, and almost immediately regretting it as he heard the familiar _thunk! thunk! thunk!_ of the handle of a broom on the ceiling of the elderly woman who lived below him. He tossed his keys down on the kitchen table, too lazy to bother hanging them on the hook. He shrugged off his coat and hung it on the back of his one trusty kitchen chair.

He stood there for a minute, trying to decide what to do. On one hand, he could sleep for the rest of the day and not be tired tomorrow morning. On the other, he could enjoy the only six hours of free time he’s going to have for the entire week. He decided to err on the side of caution and he quickly set an alarm on his phone to make sure he didn’t sleep too long.

He quickly changed into his most comfortable pair of pajamas and threw himself into bed. He didn’t even realize how quickly he had fallen asleep until the alarm blaring into his right ear jolted him awake. Peeling his drool-crusted face off of his pillow, he turned his alarm off and checked the time. 5 o’ clock in the morning. Perfect. He took a half-asleep shower, got dressed, gathered everything he thought he would need, and ate a granola bar while on the way out the door.

The drive to the FBI felt like clockwork; an hour there, park in the parking garage, and a quick text to Tina to let him into the building. About five minutes into standing in the freezing cold parking garage, Tina finally came to the door and waved him inside. The bright florescent lights immediately began to burn his eyes.

“You want coffee?” Tina turned around to ask while they were walking. 

“I think you should be asking me if I need coffee, because the answer is yes,” he yawned.

“I thought I told you to get some sleep?!” she snapped at him.

“I fell asleep as soon as I got home,” he said defensively, “it just _feels_ like I didn’t get any, even though I must have gotten a solid ten hours.”

“Well, in any case, you better caffeinate the fuck up. We’ve got shit to do.” She replied, leading him into the employee kitchen.

The kitchen was plain, containing only a fridge, some sparkling clean counters, and a lone coffee machine. The smell of the fresh coffee was absolutely wonderful. It was probably just the same cheap shit that all offices buy, but he didn’t care. He picked the biggest paper cup he could find, and poured himself a boiling hot cup. Tina did so as well, and he trudged along behind her as she led him to whichever department she decided to go towards first.

She headed towards her office first, and he sat in the chair opposite her desk, sipping his coffee. Two seconds later, there was a manila folder in his face.

“What’s this?” he inquired, taking the folder from her impatient hands.

 “Autopsy report,” she replied, taking a seat at her desk and pulling out a pen.

He furrowed his eyebrows and opened up the folder to look over the report. The results were just as he had described them at the initial crime scene: no defensive wounds, massive blood loss, and a human bite mark over the carotid artery in the neck. He spotted something that worried him, though. The blood had been completely drained while she was still alive.

 Now this vampire thing is starting to look a lot more plausible. Although he knew that if he mentioned it to Tina again, she would probably glare him into next week. He decided to keep his suspicious locked away in his own head. One other thing did bothered him, though.

 “So… the saliva they pulled off the bite wound,” he started, “it was human?”

“As human as you and me, pal,” she leaned back in her chair.

“No anomalies or anything that stood out about the sequence?” he asked.

Tina paused for a second, looking up at the ceiling and thinking, “You might have to go talk to the DNA team about that one. I’m pretty sure they said that _something_ was off, but I’m not one hundred percent on what they said it was.”

“I want to know what the anomaly was, then,” he stood up, “it could help us identify the killer.” 

“The DNA didn’t match to anyone in the database, though,” she rebutted.

“Yes, but it could still help us build a profile,” he said, “We can at least build a bit of a better understanding of them rather than having nothing at all.”

Tina seemed to agree, and she led him out of her office, pulling a guest badge from a drawer in her desk and pinning it to his lapel in the first place. This reminded him that he was forced to put on a nice suit this morning, and he cursed the FBI for it. Tina led him through a maze of hallways, past an autopsy room (which was unfortunately _very_ occupied), and into an office located just outside of the DNA lab.

The lab tech was eating breakfast in his office when they walked in, and he raised his eyebrows at Tina, waiting for her prompt.

“We need the DNA profile from the saliva on the bite mark, from the Barebone case,” she demanded, “We need to take a look at the anomaly.”

“Oh!” the technician exclaimed, setting his half eaten bagel down on a napkin, “I know exactly what you’re talking about. The anomaly was _miniscule_ , but we found a negative-strand RNA virus.”

“…And that means,” Tina motioned for him to continue. 

“Think of influenza,” the technician waved his hands dramatically, “or rabies! But the only problem with the strand we found in the saliva was that it didn’t match any known RNA virus profiles. At least, none that are currently known to us.”

“So,” Tina started, “What you’re saying is that our killer had some sort of blood hungry super-rabies virus?”

“Something like that,” the technician folded his hands and leaned back in his chair, content with the information he had given.

“You ever seen this before?” she turned to Newt, who was caught completely off guard by the action.

“No, I… I mean,” he stammered, “I’ve seen corpses that have contracted rabies before, but… that woman was perfectly healthy when she was killed. There was no sign of any illness or virus.”

“We can confirm that with the autopsy report,” the technician waved a folder above the surface of his desk, which Tina then responded to with a nod, “The only trace of the RNA virus we found was in the saliva. It didn’t spread.”

“Then… I have nothing, unfortunately,” Newt shrugged and stuffed his hands into his pockets.

“Well, shit,” Tina ran her hand through her hair, “Looks like this case might go cold, then. It’s not like this lady was well-liked, anyway.” 

“What do you mean?” he questioned.

“Well, the NYPD sent us over a profile on Mary Lou Barebone, and apparently she was running some sort of illegal orphanage situation,” Tina explained, “All of the older children that they interviewed said that she was abusive and cruel. She didn’t have any immediate family, either. No parents, siblings, or biological children.”

“Hm,” he hummed to himself, “Are there any previous unsolved murder cases that have popped up in the last few months that have a similar victim profile?”

“Nope, none,” Tina shook her head.

“Damn,” he cursed.

Connecting this case with other cases was the one and only hope he had to finding out just what the ever-loving _fuck_ is going on. There was no physical evidence to support his vampire theory, nor was Tina ever going to believe him in a million goddamn years. He literally couldn’t do _anything_ else to this case.

“Well, thank you, Todd,” she thanked the technician as she began shooing Newt out of his office, “Enjoy your bagel, I guess.”

Speaking of bagels, his stomach was growling. The single granola bar he had eaten before his car ride was clearly not enough.

“So you’re sure that you don’t have anything?” she asked him once they had gotten back to her office.

“I’m completely one hundred percent positive,” he shrugged, “There’s nothing else that I can do. I know things aren’t adding up, but… in the end it was just some woman who got attacked and died.”

Tina sat for a moment and mulled over his reply, “Well, I’ll keep the case open for a few more months and I’ll pass it on to anyone else who wants to take a look. Other than that, you’re free to go, Scamander.”

“You promise you won’t bother me at two in the morning on Fridays anymore?” he teased, unclipping his guest badge and making his way to the door.

“No promises,” she stated flatly, waving him outside.

He felt guilty as he walked into the cold parking garage. This case still bothered him, and even though there was no one seeking justice for her murder, there was something that still wasn’t right. The DNA technicians were clearly not too concerned with the unknown RNA virus that made an appearance, nor were they concerned of the chance of it potentially spreading to greater New York. The bite marks were human but… the blood had been drained. He clearly was not asking the right people for answers. He needed to get sources from people with more experience in the…occult.

The rumble in his stomach jolted him out of his thoughts, and powered him through the rest of his commute home. It was just after lunchtime, and he decided to stay home for the rest of the afternoon and fix something to eat there instead of having to walk out in the cold.

He threw off his coat, placed his keys back on the hook, and immediately changed into his pajamas. He quickly fixed himself a plain bagel for a late brunch and brought his meal over to the couch. He gathered his fuzziest blankets, closed all of his curtains, and flipped his TV over to Netflix. He decided to spend the rest of the night vegging out to some mindless true crime documentaries.

It felt so good to finally relax, but he couldn’t help but to feel slightly lonely. He _had_ been playing around with the idea of adopting a dog lately. Maybe he’d take himself up on that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> y'all should know that i'm not a DNA technician nor do i know anything at all about vampires so i made most of this shit up


	5. Ritual

The familiar sound of his Monday morning alarm pulled him out of his state of unconsciousness, the blaring ring was like nails on a chalkboard to his ears. He turned his alarm off, albeit begrudgingly, and dragged himself out of bed and into the shower. Once he was clean and woken up, he put on his nicest sweater vest and shuffled out into the kitchen to make himself some coffee. He glanced over his half-assed lesson plans for the day at the kitchen table before grabbing them (and the stack of essays before he forgot) and brewing his caffeine sludge directly into his travel mug and heading out to his car.

If he didn't have the looming threat of his job and responsibilities hanging over his head, he wouldn't have even left the house today. But, alas, he had to mould young minds. Even if they didn't want to listen to him drone on about decomposition or whatever. To be fair, Newt completely understood. College bored him, even if he did love talking about.... decomposition. It was just the _learning_ part that was dull. He pulled into his reserved spot at the campus parking lot, gathered his laptop and his bag full of essays and lesson plans, clipped his faculty badge to his lapel, and headed inside. 

Today's topic in his morning Advanced Criminology class was body farms. His sheer fascination with the subject lifted him up and out of his sleepy stupor. His students (thankfully) paid attention. Well, most of them, at least. There were the select few "problem students" that always just sort of...sat there. This was a doctorate level class, for fuck's sake, and he didn't feel the least bit sorry when he marked those particular assholes down in the class participation category. He would take everyone on a field trip to an actual body farm to try and get them a little more jazzed about it, but sadly there are none on the east coast at all. The closest was Illinois. He made a mental note to try and make it out to see that one at some point this year. 

The class he had to teach after lunch, though, was a completely different story. This class was nearly _impossible_ to teach, and he placed some of the blame on it being held right after the lunch break. The other half of the blame was that these particular students were first year students, 18 year olds that were fresh out of high school. None of them were used to this type of class structure, even if it was only an introductory criminology course. This was usually the first class that new students take here, and the only reason he agreed to teach it was because he owed the dean a favor. 

This was also the class that he had to grade the essays for. Most of them actually did a pretty decent job, and he was pleased that they were at least retaining _some_ information. After his lunchtime class ended around 3:30, he sat in his office for a few minutes, sketching out some ideas for a crime scene themed coloring book activity (he had taken Tina's advice). After a minute or so of tapping his pen in frustration, his stomach growled. He realized that he had skipped lunch to re-organize his desk. He was done for the day, so he started to think about getting something to eat. He briefly debated just going and finding something near the college, but there were surprisingly very few places to get food near the campus besides the college cafeteria, and he didn't feel like dealing with that. He decided to pack it up and go home for the evening. By the time he finished his commute and got back to his building, it would be dinner time anyway, so he decided to wait to get food in a neighborhood that he was more familiar with. 

Even though he hadn't physically done much today, he still heaved a sigh of exhaustion as he pulled into his apartment building's parking garage. His usual spot was taken, probably by someone who didn't live here and was only visiting, so that only furthered his exhaustion. He rode the elevator up to his place, and dropped off his bag and made sure to pocket his wallet before he left.

He had started walking before he had even decided what he wanted to eat. Maybe pizza? Pizza was such a cliché New York thing to eat. He loved pizza, but he had just eaten it last weekend with Tina. He ultimately wanted something warm, _comforting_. Ramen sounded fucking amazing. The best ramen place he had ever eaten at was quite the journey, however. On top of that, he had to walk through a bit of a bad part of town. He had never had any issues, though, since he never bothered anyone and he kept to himself. He knew the route there by heart, so he didn't bother taking out his phone to use the GPS, and he rounded the corner of the block to start his trek through the city. 

The air was absolutely bone chilling, and he was thankful that he had thrown on the scarf that Queenie had knitted him for the holidays. He pulled the scarf over his mouth and nose as he power-walked through the cold city. Just as he had entered into the bad part of the neighborhood, he could have sworn he heard footsteps behind him. He threw a glance over his shoulder, and the only thing he saw was a couple of drunk teenagers stumbling their way down the opposite side of the sidewalk as him. Why was every person he came into contact with in this city always intoxicated? This probably explains why it always smells like piss, though.

He forced this bout of paranoia out of his brain and powered on with his walk. His ears were tricking him, though. At least, he hoped they were. He quickened his pace a little, but still kept his ears trained on the noises he was hearing. He _really_ didn't want Tina to find his corpse. The footsteps he was hearing were quiet, to him it sounded like they were _trying_ to be quiet, but he could still hear scuffling. He didn't dare take another look behind him, as this could possibly agitate his potential attacker. His walking pace was now as fast as he could physically manage, and he was almost at a jog. If he started running, that could give away that he was on to whoever was following him. He still had at least eight blocks to go, and he was starting to run out of breath from walking too fast. 

"Hey!" a voice sounded from behind him, making him stop dead in his tracks, his stomach dropping.

He stood there, stopped for a few seconds, and then slowly turned around to face the voice he had heard. Stood about twenty feet behind him was a man. He was shorter than Newt was, but not by much. He looked much stockier, however, and he easily outweighed him with at least 50 pounds of pure muscle. The man's clothes weren't dirty, but they looked like they didn't quite fit him, his shirt was hanging quite low and his jeans looked to be about one size too large. It had just started to get dark outside, and the man was standing just behind a street light, which cast his face in a dark shadow. Newt simply stood and stared at him before the man cleared his throat.

"I, ... uh-" his voice sounded hoarse, like he hadn't talked to anyone in months. Newt also noticed that his hands were fidgeting inside of his coat pockets.

_This is it_ , he thought to himself, _Tina's going to find my corpse and it's going to be riddled with stab holes, oh my god._

The man cleared his throat again, "You, uh.... smell nice."

"W-what?" he didn't mean for the question to spill out of his mouth like that, but he was genuinely baffled.

_What the fuck kind of drugs is this dude doing???_ His mind was racing, trying to think of a way out of this situation.

"I said you smell nice," the man said a little louder before he shuffled a little and stepped into the streetlight.

Newt probably gasped a little louder than he probably should have because when he saw the man's face he was just a little bit awestruck. _This motherfucker's **hot**_ **.**

His hair was slicked back very neatly, a lot neater than expected, and the sides of his head were shaved to the perfect length. The fact that his temples were going a little grey didn't help the blush on Newt's face. At least he could pass it off because of the cold.

"Err...." Newt stumbled with what to say, trying not to drag on an awkward silence, "thank...you?"

The man took a couple steps closer to him, "Where're you headed tonight?"

"I, uh... was going to go and get ramen," he blurted out, pointing his thumb behind him to signal the direction he was supposed to be going.

_No, Newt, what the fuck are you doing?! This creep is probably going to murder you, don't tell him where you're going!_ His subconscious was screaming at him to shut the hell up, but before his brain could stop his mouth from talking, he continued.

"You could...join me. If you wanted." he mentally kicked himself in the dick. Taking a stalker out for ramen? He never did things like this, _especially_ not on a school night. 

"I would like that very much," the man took another couple of steps.

"I, uh," he shuffled a little again, "I already know the way so you can just...walk with me, I guess? It's about eight blocks or so from here,"

"I'm fine with walking," the man said, almost a little too cheerily.

Newt nodded and the two fell into step with each other. Something about this guy felt....weird? He wasn't entirely confident with the vibe he was giving him, but he couldn't think straight with his brain screaming at him about how attractive he was. What the fuck was he going to do once they were done eating? If this guy had followed him down the street, he would probably follow him home. He made a mental note to not invite him back to his apartment. He wasn't in the right head space for something like that, he wasn't going to do that to himself. He also had classes to teach.

"I didn't catch your name, stranger," the man walking next to him turned his head and smiled.

"Er, Newt," he said quickly, not wanting to give his full name.

"Hm, haven't heard that one before," the man chuckled, and then introduced himself, "Percival."

"That's not exactly a common name either," he mentally chastised himself for the sass.

Percival let out another small laugh, "I get that a lot, unfortunately. I bet you do, too."

"Unfortunately," he said bluntly, "So... why did you tell me I smelled good?"

Percival's eyebrows furrowed together, "Because.... I think you smell good? Is that a bad thing to say?"

"Well, technically no, but...you were at least twenty feet behind me. There's no way you could have smelled me," he replied.

"I have a very... _keen_ sense of smell, I'll put it that way." Percival replied. 

"Oh," he said, "I guess that makes sense. Sorry for questioning you like that."

"It's fine," Percival briefly held a hand up, to wave off the apology, and then stuffed his hands in his pockets. 

The rest of the walk took all of twenty minutes, and they arrived at their destination. The ramen shop was a little hole-in-the wall restaurant in an alleyway behind a laundromat. No one was ever in there, but that was why he liked it. It was warm, quiet, and had the added benefit of _really_ good food. Plus the lady behind the counter absolutely loved him.

They took their seats, and the nice lady from behind the counter gave them their menus. Newt knew exactly what he wanted, he got the same thing every time he came here, but he pretended to look over the menu out of sheer courtesy to his... companion. However, when he looked up from his menu after a while, he noticed that the man across from him hadn't even touched his.

"Do you... know what you want?" he asked tentatively.

"Oh, no, I already ate before I came," Percival said gently.

He paused for a moment, still holding the menu up, "Then... why did you want to get food with me? I assumed you wanted to eat."

"I couldn't resist the chance to stare at a beautiful stranger all night, could I?" he grinned.

"Oh," the blush was threatening to creep back up to his face, "That's very flattering."

Percival simply smiled back in reply. Newt was suddenly very self conscious about eating an incredibly messy noodle soup in front of him. The lady came back around to take their menus, and he ordered his soup. As soon as the bowl was put in front of him, he completely forgot about his sheepishness, and his stomach took over. Percival held true to his word, he did in face stare at him the entire time it took him to eat his food. He stared at him with a sort of...fascination. The man looked absolutely entranced with him.

He wasn't used to this sort of attention, _at all_. He had to admit, he kind of liked it. At least he knew the feelings were mutual. Despite having had an enormous bowl of boiling hot soup, there was a different sort of warmth that had nested its way into the pit of his stomach, and he felt happy and content. Still on some sort of contact high, he went up to the counter and paid for his food, and Percival followed him out into the alleyway, looking just as content as Newt despite not having eaten a thing.

The sharp, cold air hit them like a ton of bricks upon walking outside, and Percival used it to his advantage to get a little closer to Newt.

"Listen," Percival was just a hair's breath away from his now, "I have a proposition for you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah i had this chapter written like a week ago but my computer decided it would be a fun idea to completely erase it from my hard drive so consider this a revised draft
> 
> also i'm done with school for the semester so now i have more time to write ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ


	6. Reasonable Doubt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bit of a dialogue-heavy chapter here, folks

**_Proposition_ ** _?! What the fuck is this guy on about?_

Newt put his hands up and backed away from the man and into the solid concrete wall of the alley, “Whoa, Whoa, I’m not… I don’t do that.”

“Wait, what?” Percival looked confused. 

“I’m not some sort of… prostitute! I don’t know what your intentions are but you’ve clearly got the wrong idea here,” Newt tried to defend himself, thinking of his best way out of this.

“Whoa, no, no, no!” Percival shook his head violently, “this isn’t about sex! There’s no money involved, that’s not what I’m saying-“

“Well, it sure sounded like that’s what you were saying!” anger started to take over from fear at this point.

“Listen, I-“ Percival scratched the back of his head nervously and shuffled in place.

“You better get on with it or I’m fucking _bolting_ ,” Newt threatened.

“You- you have to hear me out, just for a second!” he stammered, holding his hands out to try and get Newt to stay in place. 

“You have one minute,” Newt rooted himself to the spot, folding his arms impatiently.

“I need blood.” Percival stated bluntly.

Newt narrowed his eyes in confusion and stood silent for a beat before hesitantly continuing, “… why?”

“It’s… it’s a long story,” Percival’s fidgeting was only getting worse.

“I’d love it if you shortened it for me,” Newt spat back at him.

“I, I-“ Percival looked around the alley and behind him to make sure no one was listening in, “I need it for food.”

“Sooooooo…. You’re a vampire.” He said bluntly.

“Yes?” Percival let out a breath of air, running his fingers through his hair. 

“You’re shitting me.” The fear that had been in the pit of his stomach was threatening to bubble back up.

“Unfortunately, no, I’m not,” said Percival.

“Vampires don’t… they don’t… you don’t exist!” he didn’t expect to be word vomiting, but here he was.

“I’m clearly standing right in front of you, of course I exist, dumbass.” He was starting to fidget again.

 “Don’t call me a dumbass!” he yelled, but then immediately quieted himself, not wanting to draw attention, “It’s just… a little hard to believe, y’know?”

“Yeah, I, uh… I get that,” Percival let out a frustrated sigh, “but it’s not like I wanted to get stuck in this situation.”

“So, this… situation,” he started, a little calmer this time, “You’re stuck living forever, you have a creepy super-smell ability, and you require blood as some sort of sadistic sustenance.” 

“That’s what it boils down to, yes,” Percival replied, “Except… my hunger, it’s... getting worse.”

“What do you mean?” he asked. 

“I used to be able to feed once every two or three months, give or take,” Percival said, fiddling with the zipper pull of his jacket, “But now… I’m hungry every two weeks. It’s been happening more frequently.”

“Do you… know why?” he asked in reply, trying to press more information out of him. 

“No, I-“ Percival threw his hands up in resignation, “I haven’t really had the time to look into it.”

“You’ve been too busy murdering people,” Newt deadpanned.

“This is why I’m asking you to do this!” Percival whisper-yelled, “I don’t want to keep killing people all the time!”

“So what you want,” Newt continued calmly, “is for me to be your own personal blood bag.”

“Literally how much clearer can I get?” Percival said forcefully, “Yes, I need a blood bag. A purer source of food.”

Newt took a minute to take it in, but then continued, “What’s in it for _me_?”

“W-what?” Percival stammered.

“I mean, what do _I_ get out of this?” he pushed himself off the alley wall, arms still firmly crossed, “If I agree to be your personal blood bag, what could I possibly benefit?”

Percival flailed silently for a moment, “I- anything. You can have _anything_.”

“Peace and quiet?” Newt asked, completely seriously.

“ _What_?” said Percival, who looked flabbergasted.

“I want peace and quiet. I want to be able to enjoy my nights and weekends, I want to be able to relax and not be stressed. I have a job, I can’t be interrupted when I’m grading work, and I need to be able to relax after I teach my classes.” He counted off what he wanted on his fingers, re-folding his arms after he was done speaking.

“T-that’s all you want?” Percival asked as if he couldn’t believe him, “No immortality, no cool vampire powers, _nothing_? Just… peace and quiet?”

“Don’t forget the relaxation.” He said bluntly.

“I think I can manage that, actually,” said Percival, “As long as I have a source of food when I need it and a place to stay.”

“You can sleep on the couch.” Newt squinted his eyes at him again.

“That’s all I need, honestly,” Percival threw his hands up in surrender.

“Fine,” Newt slid his hands into his pockets, “but if you make even _one_ wrong move, your ass is _out_.”

Percival didn’t say anything in response, only nodding in agreement. 

The two of them spent the walk back to Newt’s apartment in complete silence. Newt was bordering on fuming, mostly because he was mad at himself for getting into this mess. Seriously, what the _fuck_ was he thinking? He still wasn’t even sure if this guy was lying or not, or if he was on some sort of drug.

Vampires couldn’t be real… could they? He had every reason to not believe this man, but… he had seen the evidence. A victim that was surprised from behind at night, with two puncture wounds in the shape of bite marks, the blood completely drained from her body, and a mysterious virus that can’t be identified. The virus that could have turned that woman had she lived. The pieces were starting to slot into place. The man’s blood bag plea was starting to look more and more believable. But why was his hunger getting more frequent all of a sudden? That would have to be a mystery that he solved later. He had more important things to focus on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the double update but i got into the Zone™ on this one


	7. Calibration

He didn’t care that it was nighttime, and he didn’t care about his crotchety old neighbor below him, because he slammed the door to his apartment behind him once he and his grungy looking guest were safely inside. He flung off his coat and shoes, not even caring about the snow and road salt he was tracking into his carpet. He sat down at his dinky kitchen table and ran his hands over his face.

Percival must have heard the old lady banging her broom handle below them because he commented, “Your neighbors don’t like you, eh?”

“My neighbors like me fine,” he clipped.

“Oh….kay,” Percival said, then clearing his throat awkwardly.

“The couch is… there,” he waved a hand over towards the couch, which was already in plain view, “Feel free to sit down and not bother me for a while, I have lesson plans to adjust for the rest of the week. You’re welcome to turn on the television or whatever, I have Netflix.”

He got up and rummaged around in his bag for his folder of lesson plans.

“What’s… Netflix?” Percival asked him, still not taking a seat on the couch.

Newt stopped rummaging in his bag, having pulled out what he needed, and stared at the man for a solid thirty seconds before continuing, “You’ve never heard of Netflix? It’s like… a television streaming platform. I mainly use it to watch documentaries.” 

“Hm,” Percival replied, finally lowering himself down to take a seat on the couch, “I guess I’ve never really… had television programming before. I know what it is, but I’ve just never really lived anywhere permanently enough to have it. Netflix is completely new to me, though.”

“Well, then you’ve missed out on quite a bit of quality programming,” he retorted, spreading out his papers on the kitchen table and taking a seat.

“How do you work this thing?” Percival said, thoroughly confused by the concept of the wireless remote.

“You just-“ he got up in frustration and walked over to help him, “Oh, wait! _Shoes off_. I don’t want mud in my carpet, put them over on the mat by the door.”

Percival grumbled in compliance, untying his shoes while Newt fiddled with the remote. He turned the TV on and switched it over to Netflix, handing Percival the remote as he sat down. 

“Use the arrow buttons to scroll through to see what there is to watch, and press the select button to choose it,” he directed, suddenly looking over at where Percival had left his shoes, “What is _on_ your shoes? That… doesn’t look like mud…”

“Might have gotten a little blood on there at some point,,” Percival said distractedly, flipping through the little icons to try and find something he liked, “I dunno, I’ve had those shoes a while. There’s probably more than one questionable substance on there.”

“Disgusting,” Newt muttered under his breath, returning to his abandoned lesson plans.

For the next hour, he sat at the table twiddling his pen, watching Percival trying to pick something to watch. It was nearly excruciating. Finally, he ended up deciding on watching a war documentary. He had no objections, so he turned his undivided attention back to his job. He needed to tweak his lesson plans for this week, since he had noticed that both of his classes weren’t latching on to the material as much as he had wanted them to.

He decided to shift his focus more on the specifics of forensic science and how it related to body farms, instead of just spouting out a bunch of facts about decomposition, even though he thoroughly enjoyed it. If he tied in the basics of forensic science, his introductory class would learn something that they would sorely need, and his advanced course would at least be able to understand what he was saying on a higher level.

Those were just for his Monday, Wednesday, and Friday lectures, though. His Tuesday and Thursday lectures were introductory general education. Essentially, they were the classes that they force every freshman to take their first year. It was a glorified “here’s how college works and here’s how not to do anything stupid” class. Newt broke his own rules. He did something stupid. 

You’d think that the concept of Stranger Danger would be a bit more engrained in his head but apparently it just didn’t get through his thick skull in time, because that stranger was now sitting on his couch. He made a small note in his class memos to make sure to include a small section on not picking up strange characters at night. Maybe he would teach himself a lesson. 

Once he solidified his plans for Tuesdays and Thursdays, he switched gears back over to his other two classes. He made a note to include a coloring page activity on Friday, to try and lighten the mood up from all the death that was usually included in the lecture. He had found some free human anatomy coloring pages online and planned to print them out and steal some crayons from the supplies closet. This was mostly his opportunity to not have to talk for three hours straight, but was also a large block of time that he planned to use to grade assignments and write more lesson plans. He wanted a _completely_ free weekend this time, and god damn it nothing was going to stop him.

He decided to check his email, to make sure none of the students needed anything. Thank god no one did. There were one or two emails from students stating their absences for later this week, which he responded to. He also took the time to properly import the grades from those essays into the system so that his students could check their grades online.

He was done with all of his work for the rest of the week, and he set his pen down and shuffled his papers back into his folder, turning his attention back to Percival. He was absolutely enthralled with the documentary he was watching, and was staring with a very intent –and very angry- expression directly at the screen.

“I know I’ve been alive for a while, but did humans really do this stuff to each other?!” Percival blurted at the screen.

“…Exactly how long have you been alive?” Newt questioned tentatively.

“About four hundred, give or take a few decades,” he replied, “You start to lose count after a while.”

“So, you’ve been alive for four hundred years and you never noticed that there were _wars_ going on?” Newt rebutted.

“I mean, I knew there were wars, but I never knew it was _this_ bad.” Percival said.

“Well, it was,” Newt said back, “and still is. There’s violence going on all over the world, it’s not just America and Europe.”

“That’s a shame,” Percival said, turning his attention back to the screen.

“Do vampires have wars?” Newt asked.

“Not to the scale that humans do, since there are obviously a lot less of us, but we do fight with each other on occasion,” Percival replied, “I don’t agree with the beliefs of every other vampire on the planet. Just because we eat the same thing doesn’t mean we _are_ the same.”

“Can you eat human food or can you _just_ drink blood?” He had to admit that he was getting curious at this point.

“Is this an interrogation all of a sudden?” Percival looked offended.

“Could be,” Newt grabbed a banana off the counter and started to peel it, suddenly deciding that he needed a snack.

“Yes, I can technically eat human food,” Percival sighed, “but it doesn’t offer me any sort of sustenance. I’m still going to be hungry unless I drink blood.”

“ _Only_ human blood?” Newt asked.

“ _Yes_ , only human. Trust me, I’ve tried.” Percival replied.

“So… why are you getting hungry more often, then?” he asked. 

Percival threw his hands up in a grandiose shrug, “Fuck if I know! I tried feeding as often as I could; I picked people that wouldn’t be missed. Apparently that’s not good enough.”

Newt pondered on this for a moment, “You think that might have something to do with it, though?”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“The purity of the blood. Maybe their genetics didn’t quite mesh with your… vampire stuff.” He waved his hands as he talked, trying to come to some sort of conclusion but falling short.

“It’s a venom, you know,” Percival said, “When we bite people, unless we drain them or lick the wound closed, the venom turns them.”

Newt suddenly remembered the toxicology results from the victim in the alley. The RNA virus. “It’s a virus,” he stated. 

“What?” Percival asked in confusion.

“The venom, when it reacts with human blood it acts as a virus,” Newt replied, “One of your ‘victims’ had an unknown RNA virus show up in the toxicology results. None of the technicians could explain it.”

“Yeah, so?” Percival began to get frustrated, “I’m sure this has happened with other victims in the past. Vampires have existed in the shadow of human society for thousands of years. People have definitely noticed us before, it’s just that nobody ever takes them seriously when they tell other people.”

Boy, did Newt ever relate to that. 

“ _So_ ,” Newt continued, “What if the reason that you’re hungry all the time is because the venom didn’t react right with the previous victim’s blood? It could be reacting negatively and causing the blood to go bad. You tracked me down because you _smelled_ me, right? Did you do this to all of the other victims?” 

“No, I don’t remember smelling them,” Percival replied, “I never smelled them at all, actually. I only sensed the heartbeat out of sheer hunger.”

“Have you ever smelled anyone else like me?” he asked.

“No, I’ve never smelled anything or anyone at all like you do. I’ve never been able to physically smell another human as strongly as you, and no other human has smelled as good, at that.”

“Damn it,” Newt hated to admit it, but the most logical conclusion was that _he_ was the solution to Percival’s hunger problem.

“So, what you’re saying is that your genetics… are designed to make you _taste better_ to me?” Percival asked.

“Unfortunately, that’s the conclusion I’ve come to,” Newt said flatly, “Or at least that my genetics are most compatible with your specific brand of vampire venom. Other vampires have to experience the same thing, right?”

“I have heard of others keeping human companions around to feed on, yeah,” Percival scratched at his chin, “I just never knew that that was why until now.”

The both of them stewed in the silence for a minute, accepting the conclusion. Newt had finished his banana a long time ago, and was left with nothing to do other than fidget with a pen he had left sitting on the counter.

“So… are you hungry _now_?” he immediately regretted asking that question as soon as it left his mouth, even though he knew he would have to face this at some point. 

“My body is telling me that, yes,” Percival stated dully, picking at a hole that was starting to form on the knee of his jeans.

“I… have no idea how to start with this or how any of this works at all.” Newt said completely seriously. He was starting to get seriously anxious now.

“I mean… it’s pretty straight forward,” Percival said, sounding slightly prickly, “The only thing I would have to warn you about is that you might feel a little woozy for the rest of the night, but you should be back to feeling better in the morning.”

“I have classes to teach, so that’s good,” he was trying to stall the inevitable, “I should probably sit down for this… right?” 

“That would be a good idea,” Percival said sarcastically, scooting over on the couch to make room for him.

Newt slowly made his way over, gingerly taking a seat on the couch. God, you could cut the awkwardness in the air with a knife. He knew he wasn’t good with social situations, and this was one of the worst he had ever experienced. How was one supposed to act while they sat there and let another man drink their blood?

He felt a hand take a firm grip on his arm, and the next moment he felt the warm breath from Percival’s nose on his neck. He wondered if it was too late to back out now, but he was in too deep. Percival gently tilted his head to the side to allow better access to his neck, lowering him down to rest in a more comfortable position on the couch pillows. He really was being a lot tenderer than he expected. 

He only fest the pain of the bite for a split second, but it went away as the venom numbed the mark. For a minute, it was a lot less exciting than he thought; it just felt like he was getting a very gentle hickey. Once he began to get lightheaded, it was a different story. His eyes were staring up at the ceiling, but bright lights began to dance in front of them. It was honestly euphoric. He had to imagine this is what it felt like to be high, as he had never done drugs himself and he had never had the thought to ask any of his students.

The feeling of euphoria lasted for what felt like hours. His breathing had slowed, he was relaxed, and he felt completely comfortable and utterly content. This was genuinely the _best_ he’d felt in months. This proposition might not have been a bad deal after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i kept writing Netflix as Newtflix this chapter, so that's about as good as my brain is currently functioning


	8. Algor Mortis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a bit of a short interlude chapter of sorts!

Newt woke up to his alarm face down in a mountain of pillows and, completely to his surprise, in his own bed. The last thing he remembered was sitting on the couch. He felt unusually… refreshed. Usually he felt like a week-old corpse when he woke up in the morning, but he distinctly noticed the absence of the bags underneath his eyes.

What he did have, though, was a _giant_ hickey on the side of his neck. There was no sign of any scarring from the bite marks, but it was clear that he had engaged in… _unusual_ activity the previous night. He sighed and briefly thought about going and buying some makeup to try and cover it up, but immediately tossed that idea in the garbage for fear of getting foundation stains on any of his collared shirts.

He walked out to the living room to find the room in near complete darkness. All of the curtains had been closed, and then he remembered the whole vampirism thing. Percival was completely out cold on the couch, and was sprawled in what looked to be a very uncomfortable position, as one of his arms was up over the back of the couch and one leg was hanging off the bottom. The TV was still on, and it seemed like Percival had decided to indulge in one of Newt's favorite things: true crime documentaries. He flipped the TV off, trying to make as little noise as possible, and gently draped a spare blanket over Percival's sleepy form. He made his usual coffee, gathered his lesson plans, and began his commute. 

As he drove to work, his mind kept flipping back to the Barebone case. On one hand, he had literally solved her murder. On the other, that woman was completely vile to have mistreated that many children, and he was certain that no one would mind if he left that particular case go cold. Having an unsolved murder on his conscience was going to eat away at him, but there was no feasible way that Tina would believe him. Ultimately, he decided to keep his little secret. He tried to think positively instead; this gave him the perfect opportunity to introduce occult motivated crimes into his planned criminal psychology unit. This was sure to produce some interesting essays from his advanced class.

He stepped out of his car and onto campus with a smile on his face, he felt absolutely giddy with excitement. The idea of having a secret, especially this kind of secret, absolutely thrilled him. He had never been a rebellious kid, but now that he had the opportunity to do it as an adult, he was unquestionably going to take it. None of his students had mentioned the hickey when he walked in (thank christ), but he did happen to catch a few giggles from the back of the room on more than one occasion throughout the class. His lecture for the day, even though it was just a generic presentation on how to do financial aid paperwork at the college, went over surprisingly well. He figured the students enthusiasm stemmed from the prospect of free money, but nevertheless he was pleased with how the day transpired. 

After all of his work was done for the way, he headed home, and softly made his way into his apartment. He made sure to make as little noise as he could, both for his irritable downstairs neighbor, and for the still sleeping man on his couch. How long do vampires sleep, anyway? It was only four in the afternoon, and it was still light outside, so he figured that Percival would be asleep until the sun had fully set. He still had a few hours to himself, so he made himself a grilled cheese for dinner and sat quietly at the kitchen table to eat. 

As he sat there, he stared at Percival, feeling slightly creepy but also giving his brain some time to think. Where was this going? He couldn't let him stay at his apartment forever, his landlord would notice that he's not on the lease. He doesn't go out during the day, though, so hiding him would be a little easier. More importantly, what kind of trouble would Percival bring to him? A 400 year old vampire has got to have some enemies, right? He dreaded the thought of a pack of murderous vampires getting into a fight and tearing the building apart. God, what a mess. 

He didn't have an y additional work to do for that night, so he decided to flick the TV on to some cartoons as quiet background noise. He was sitting on the floor playing on his phone when he heard a stir from the couch. He glanced at the time on his phone, and it was barely 7pm, it had just gotten dark outside.

"Good morning, sleeping beauty," he said sarcastically as he heard Percival grunt in agitation.

"Urgh," Percival whined, "Your couch is fucking uncomfortable."

"What do you want, a diamond encrusted memory foam coffin? I'm not made of money and this is a rather small apartment, you know," he said, still idly scrolling through his phone. 

"I've slept on worse," Percival grunted, propping himself up into a more comfortable position, "You feel alright, kid?"

"I'm not a child," Newt scowled at him from across the living room, "and yes, I feel fine."

Percival didn't reply, but instead stretched his arms above his head and let out a big yawn. Newt tried to ignore the bit of midriff he saw as his shirt rode up.

"You should probably shower or something," he mentioned, "I'm going to go and get you some new clothes so you don't have to wear...those."

Percival looked down at his dirty, dingy stolen clothes and silently agreed, heading off to go and take a shower. Newt took the opportunity to take a glance at his shirt and pants sizes once the clothes were discarded, and threw on his coat. 

What kind of clothes would he like? He figured that darker colors obviously suited him more than his own choice of muted earth tones. He walked a few blocks to his favorite consignment shop, and picked out a few shirts and a couple pairs of jeans he thought would suit him. He took the liberty of choosing clothes that were one size smaller than the ones he saw on the tags, as it was quite obvious that the clothes he was currently wearing did not fit him properly. He picked out two plain black t-shirts (an obvious necessity) and a particularly eye catching -and very soft- grey v-neck with red thread accents in the stitching. The two pairs of jeans he bought were a pair of regular dark blue jeans and a pair of black skinny jeans with some slight tearing in the knees. He had to admit that that last option was chosen out of pure selfishness, his ass would look _great_ in those.

On his way out of the shop, purchases in hand, his phone buzzed in his pocket. He thought for a split second that it was Percival (did he even have a phone?) who needed something from him, but his heart dropped when he saw an all too familiar name lit up on the screen. Tina.

Damn it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> btw, if y'all are looking for a good true crime documentary series on netflix, i highly recommend "occult crimes" *crawls back into my hole*
> 
> p.s- thank you SO much to those who have been kudos-ing and commenting! it keeps my trashy ass going haha


	9. Back Spatter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings for graphic descriptions of a crime scene! y'all probably know the drill by now. oh, and i added a few tags as well *flies away*

He started his walk home, pulling his buzzing phone out of his pocket with more force than was necessary. He was so heated that he was now speed walking.

He shifted his bags to the elbow of his left arm and swiped his thumb across the screen, “Tina, what the bloody hell could you possibly want?”

He heard Tina sigh with annoyance on the other end of the line, “Don’t give me attitude, Scamander.” 

“I’m giving you attitude because it’s a fucking _school night_ , Tina,” he spat into his phone, “I have _lectures_ tomorrow.” 

“Well, you better cancel them,” she said monotonously.

“Fuck off,” he said with every amount of vitriol he could muster. He was having a good week, god damn it, and he wasn’t going to let a corpse ruin it.

“ _Watch it_ ,” Tina started to sound irritated, “Listen, Newt. I know this is the second one this week. But I need you to come in.”

“What’s so important about this body, hmm? Can’t I enjoy my night?” he asked, still fuming.

“This one’s just like the last one except…” she paused, “messier.”

“What?” a hole began to sink inside the pit of his stomach, “The bite marks and everything?”

“Same bite marks, the blood was drained, everything,” she explained, “Except this time the victim was completely ripped apart. It looks like some sort of _animal_ attacked him.” 

“Motherfucker,” Newt cursed under his breath, “How long can you hold the crime scene?” 

“As long as you need,” she replied.

“Give me two hours to get there,” he said, promptly hanging up his phone and stuffing it back into his pocket.

He finished his speed walk home, not even noticing the cold because of the sheer amount of heat his anger had generated. He was walking so fast that he almost slipped on a dangerously large patch of ice in front of the steps to his building. He walked into his apartment, out of breath and glaring at the floor, and tossed the paper bag of second hand clothing in the general direction of the couch.

“What’s this?” Percival perked up at the sight of him walking through the door so aggressively, “And why do you look mad?”

“Have you left the house?” he questioned.

“What? No, I’ve been here the whole time,” Percival said, rummaging around in the bag to take a look at the clothes. 

“There was another murder tonight,” Newt wiped at his nose, which had gone numb from the cold, “with bite marks just like the ones _you_ left on that woman in the alley earlier this week.”

Percival looked up from the bag, confusion etched into his face, “Wait, what? There are only, like… four other vampires I can think of that are based in New York, and they all have stable partners.”

“Well, clearly one of them has gone off the rails!” he threw his hands up, “and now I have to go and look at some entrails!”

Percival stood up, “You can’t just show up at the crime scene alone, they could still be lurking out there!”

“I won’t be alone, police are already there,” he said indignantly, “and you’re sure as fuck not going with me, I think you’ve done enough murder for now. I’ll be fine.”

“Bu-“ Percival tried to interject.

“ _No!_ ” he hissed, “Stay. Put. I won’t be gone longer than a few hours.” 

And with that, he left, locking the door behind him. A flimsy door lock would probably break like a toothpick to a vampire, but he had a feeling that his scolding had worked. At least, he hoped it did. A _Ping!_ sounded from his phone, as if right on queue, from Tina. She had texted him the address of the crime scene. 

He looked at the address and had to do a double take. That was just _three_ blocks down from the shop he had just come from! How on earth had he not heard the sirens, let alone the gruesome murder and dismembering? The thought that another killer vampire had probably been just _feet_ away from him sent his anxiety into overdrive.

It was only a ten minute drive over to where he needed to park his car, and he hopped out with his crime scene kit in hand. Immediately upon arrival, after he passed through police clearance, he was handed a pair of latex gloves and shoe booties. Usually they only gave them the booties if it was _really_ messy. Thankfully he had also grabbed a surgical mask to try and keep the smell at bay as well.

Tina immediately approached him, booties and gloves on, and a clean rag held to her nose.

"Good, you're here," she said, her voice muffled through the rag. 

"Begrudgingly," he said, wrinkling his nose. The surgical mask wasn't doing much. "You know that there are other _actually employed_ criminologists that work for the FBI, right? You could have just called one of those."

"Yeah, but I trust you more than some crusty old dude with an anesthesia fetish," she rolled her eyes at him.

He sighed, "So how long ago did this happen?"

"Probably only an hour or two before I called you," she said, "the body is still steaming, it's so fresh."

"Ugh," he winced at the overpowering stench of blood, “So there were no witnesses at all?”

“Nope, no one,” Tina replied, “Somehow absolutely no one was around when the crime happened but you can be damn sure that some poor soul found this.”

He walked through a group of photographers and under the yellow tape, careful of where he was stepping, to get the full scope of the scene. It was an absolute mess. He could see what vaguely looked like the skeletal form of a man lying on the ground, surrounded by a very large puddle of blood and shreds of what he assumed were skin. The spinal column was snapped in half at a very uncomfortable angle, and the skull had been smashed multiple times into the pavement, throwing brain matter and skull fragments about three feet out from the body. On the wall behind the body, there was just as much of a mess. 

It looked like who(or what)ever had torn the body apart had been flinging it behind them in a rage, it was splattered all the way up to the shingles of the building the wall was attached to. He could even see some dripping off a nearby power line. He tiptoed around the body, over to inspect the neck area, where there was just a fragment of skin still hanging on for dear life. There he saw what he came here to see, _the bite marks_.

These ones looked....different. They looked far different than the ones Percival had left, those had been clean and almost... gentle. The ones on this body were _deep_ , aggressive, and the bone underneath looked like it had cracked from the force. The poor man looked to have almost been decapitated, his neck was bent at nearly a 90 degree angle. 

Tina had snuck up behind him and was looking over his shoulder, "So, is this the same killer as last time? You think we could have a serial killer?"

"No, no, this one is different," he stood up, "These bite marks are much more violent."

"But it's still bite marks," he said, crossing her arms, "two murders in the same week, two victims with bite marks, looks a lot like a pattern to me."

"Do you have the dental records from the last one with you?" he asked.

Tina paused, "Yeah, I brought the whole file, hang on."

Tina walked him over to her cruiser and rifled through a small file organizer before producing a familiar manila envelope. Newt peeled off his gloves, slipped on a fresh pair, and flipped through the files. He pulled out the dental records and the bite impressions, and walked back over to the body. He crouched down, holding up the images to the fresh bite mark, comparing them. Tina crouched down with him.

"They're a completely different set of teeth," Tina pointed out, "the canines are spaced much further apart, and the imprints of the molars look entirely different."

"Told you so," Newt conceded, "This was done by a completely different person."

"Shit," Tina cursed, putting her hands to her hips.

"Do the usual, check for prints -both finger and shoe-, run toxicology, get dental records, everything." he said, standing back up, "Although I doubt you'd find anything, if the last crime scene didn't turn up any leads."

"You think they're related?" Tina asked.

"Even though they were committed by two different killers," he said, "yes. I think there's still some sort of connection, even if we don't have an identity on this victim yet."

Tina nodded her head, "Alright. We, uh... don't need you for anything else here, you don't need to bother helping with cleanup. We made sure to hire extra technicians for this one."

"See you around, I assume," he said, the exhaustion in his voice clearly showing.

Tina waved him off and he ditched the gloved and booties in the biohazard bin they had conveniently provided. The cold was starting to nip at his fingertips, but he sat there, in his car for a moment. What on earth was going on? Percival clearly wasn't affiliated with any of the other vampires in the city, at least it didn't seem like he was. He's at least aware of them, but, he had described them as stable. Maybe one of them had simply... snapped. 

His fingers were starting to turn blue from the cold so he turned his car on and headed home. After pulling back into his spot in the parking garage, he clicked his phone on to check the time. He had only been gone two hours. Thankfully, he got back in enough time to get a little bit of sleep, so he was grateful that he didn't end up having to cancel his lectures. Walking back up to his apartment, he was relieved to find the door still locked, just as he had left it. 

Percival was still sitting in the exact same spot that he was when he left, and he perked up as soon as Newt opened the door. 

"You're back," Percival said, shooting up from his seat on the couch and rushing over to him, gripping his shoulders and looking him over.

"W-what are you doing?" Newt asked.

"You didn't get hurt or anything?" Percival asked in a panic, still looking him up and down for injuries.

"No, obviously," Newt tried to shrug out of his grip, but his hands were _damn_ strong.

"I smell blood on you," Percival said, tilting his head in to get a better whiff.

"Of course you do," he said, pushing away his face and trying once again to release his shoulders, "I was at a _crime scene_. There was blood everywhere... why are you so concerned, anyway?"

"I was just...checking." Percival quickly removed his hands from Newt's shoulders.

Newt gave him a weird look for a moment before dropping off his bag and taking off his coat and shoes. Percival was still hovering around him, looking anxious.

"What's wrong with you?" Newt questioned, sensing the other man's discomfort. 

"You're stressed." Percival said bluntly.

"Yeah, no shit," he said, "murder does that to a person."

"It's not good for your health," Percival continued.

"I think I'm fully aware of that," Newt retorted, starting to get slightly annoyed.

Percival advanced further, "I don't like it."

"What?" he spun around to face him.

"I don't like that you're stressed." he replied.

Newt looked at him quizzically, "Oh....kay?"

"You should get some sleep," Percival stared at him, and took another step closer.

"I was just planning on it, actually," he said, "God, you're creepy."

"Sorry," Percival mumbled.

Newt gave him a tired smile and turned to go to his bedroom, "Don't get into too much trouble out here. Good night."

"Good night." Percival stared at him until he closed the bedroom door behind him.

Well, that was weird. While he was slightly creeped out by the sudden show of concern (especially from someone who had _just_ killed someone a few days ago), something deep down inside him was a little grateful for the affection. He pulled on his pajamas and slipped under the covers, and a dull warmth in the pit of his stomach lulled him into a deep sleep.


	10. Theorem

The next couple of days went without incident. He managed to get through both his Wednesday and Thursday lectures without a peep from Tina. About halfway through his Friday lecture (his students were busy doing the coloring page activity), he looked up to see her standing by the doorway.

"How long 'til your class is out?" she asked as he walked over to her.

"Only about half an hour," he said, "Why, do you need something?"

"All I need is a few minutes of your time, Newt." she sounded serious. This couldn't be good.

She went out into the hall to wait for him to finish up, and for the rest of the class he quickly made sure he had all of his work for the weekend ahead done. He finished just in time, and he was able to dismiss all of his students without assigning them any work either. He crossed his fingers that there wouldn't be any more murders this weekend, but he wasn't holding out hope. He gathered all of his things, slipped on his coat, and met Tina outside.

“Let’s grab a coffee real quick,” Tina led him over to a building across campus that housed a small café.

He offered to pay for Tina’s coffee, but of course she was too stubborn and refused. He secretly slipped a five into the tip jar anyways. Lattes in hand, Newt led the both of them over to his office, which was conveniently in the same building as the café.

"I take it you have some news about Tuesday night's murder," Newt shut his office door and sat down at his desk, sipping his coffee.

"Boy do I ever," Tina seemed to light right up as she was finally able to tell him, "We actually found a match on the dental records this time!"

Newt damn near almost spit out his scalding hot coffee, "What?"

"Yup, the teeth belong to a guy named Gellert Grindelwald," Tina magically produced a manila folder and slid it over to him, "the fucker left a full set of bridgework."

"Seems like an odd name for a New Yorker," he said, starting to flip through the papers in the folder.

"That's the problem," Tina sighed, "he's not a New Yorker. Dude's from Norway."

"I feel like you're about to tell me something else disappointing," he looked up at Tina from across the table.

"The dental records," she paused, taking a sip of her latte, "are from the late _1700s_. That's a recent picture." she pointed to a headshot that was paper-clipped to a page of notes.

The grainy headshot looked to have been taken from someone's Facebook page and was of a middle aged blonde man, with mismatched eyes, a crooked smile, and a godawful haircut. There was someone else in the photo standing beside him but they had been cropped out. Wait... _recent picture_? The man still looked young and vivacious. There was no possible way that he had dental records from the 1700s.

"You're _sure_ that the dental records are his right?" he asked, "This man was clearly born _after_ the 1960s. There's no way."

Tina shrugged, "That's what we came up with... we couldn't really trace anything else to him other than the photo and the bite mark."

"Where did you get this photo, anyway?" he asked, looking up from the folder.

"Our database picked it up from someone else's Facebook page," Tina took another generous drink from her coffee cup, "We managed to zoom in on a photo that was taken in a club not too far from here. The picture was taken just a few days before the murder."

"So... you think he's still in New York?" he asked.

"That's what we're hoping," she said, "We have full warrants out and the NYPD and the FBI are combing the city looking for witnesses. That could take a while, though, and for all we know he could have fucked off back to Europe by now."

He heaved a sigh towards his now empty coffee, "Well, I'll keep an eye out, at the very least. The most I can do is ask my neighbors if they've seen anything."

"Good," Tina nodded, "You really don't need to do anything beyond that, but... just be careful. This was in your neighborhood, Newt. I'm going to probably spend the entirety of next week going around to all the clubs and bars asking drunk people if they've seen a blonde Norwegian around. Gonna be like finding a needle in a haystack. See you around."

She stood up, tossed her empty coffee in the trash, and swiftly exited his office. Well, this was going to be fun.

He gathered himself for the drive home, and made his way out. He decided to pick up dinner on the way home, since it was Friday. He stopped at his favorite Chinese takeout place and ordered enough fried rice for at least four people. If Percival decided he didn't want any, at least he would have a ton of leftovers. Leftover Chinese food is one of life's greatest pleasures.

By the time he got home, it was just bordering on getting dark outside, so Percival must be awake by now. Unfortunately, when he pulled into the parking garage, his usual spot was taken. He recognized the car to be the expensive red convertible that belonged to the business man that lived a couple doors down from him, the prick. As irritating as this was, he soldiered on and chose a different parking spot, and he was forced to take the elevator up a few floors because of it. 

Walking through his front door, he saw that Percival was awake, and was curled up on the couch in the dark watching Netflix. He hissed slightly when Newt turned the kitchen light on. 

"You're irritated." Percival glared from inside of his blanket burrito.

"Yes, I'm irritated, my parking spot was taken," he said, "Do you want any food? I brought some home."

"Hmmmmm what is it?" Percival asked.

"Fried rice, it's Chinese food," he said, taking a bowl out of the cupboard and waiting for his response. 

"No, I don't feel like eating human food right now, thank you though." Percival burrowed himself further into his blanket shell.

"That's alright, I enjoy leftovers," he said, filling up his bowl and taking a seat on the other side of the couch.

Percival had his Netflix account turned to a documentary about tattooing, which he was alright with watching, but he was sure that it would screw with his recommendations. After about a minute or two, he jumped a little when he felt Percival scooting closer to him.

"What are you doing?" he asked hesitantly.

"You're stressed again." Percival's voice was muffled because he had quite a layer of blankets over his face.

"At least let me finish my food before you start snuggling," he said jokingly, "Why are you being such a grump, anyway? I feel fine."

"Mmph," he heard Percival grumbling from underneath the blankets.

He finished his rice and shuffled into the kitchen to take care of his bowl, package up the leftovers, and do the dishes before they piled up.

"Do you like tea?" he turned his head in the general direction of the couch to ask.

"...What kind of tea is it?" Percival poked his head out.

"I have English Breakfast, Earl Grey, and Green," he said, pulling out a few mugs.

"I like green tea," Percival mumbled, "just plain, nothing in it."

He got out a couple of tea bags, green for Percival, and earl grey for himself. Obviously, since it was nighttime, he opted for the decaffeinated versions of each. He filled his electric kettle (which was a fantastic investment, by the way, thank you America) and pressed the button to start boiling the water.

"Tea always helps me relax at night," he said, pulling some milk out of the fridge for his own cup.

The water only took a few minutes to start boiling, and he plopped the tea bags into their respective mugs and poured the water over top. He left Percival's plain, and he loaded his cup with lots of milk and sugar. Once they had both steeped for the proper amount of time, he carefully carried the mugs over to the coffee table, setting them down and taking his seat back down on the couch. As soon as he sat down, Burrito-Percival scooted his way back beside him.

"So, why are you so concerned about my stress, again?" he asked.

"Like I said before, it's not good for your health," Percival grumbled.

"Does it... make the blood taste different?" 

"To an extent, yes," Percival poked his head back out of his blankets, "A stressed person is also usually more difficult to sedate."

"Do you _need_ to sedate people, or does it happen automatically?"

"I usually do because it makes it a bit more comfortable for the person I'm drinking from, but," he paused, "some people opt to stay awake for... other reasons."

Newt didn't bother asking any further into _that_ conversation.

"So, is tea beneficial to vampires, or is it just a comfort thing like it is to humans?" he asked.

"Mmm... I mostly drink it for the warmth," Percival answered, "but as far as I'm aware, there are no physical benefits to drinking tea."

"Hm," Newt hummed, taking a sip of his tea and keeping his hands warm with the mug. Percival scooted closer.

The two of them sat in silence for a while, sipping their tea and watching what was on the television. Every five minutes or so, Percival scooted just a hair closer to him, until his hips and shoulders were flush with his.

"Why did you bury yourself in blankets?" Newt asked out of the blue, "Are you cold? I mean, I know vampires are supposed to be cold bu-"

"I did it because I like warm blankets," Percival glared at him, "and that's an urban myth. Vampires can be warm if they want to be."

"Oh, I didn't know that." he said, "You learn something new every day, I guess."

"Thank you, for the clothing earlier, I mean," Percival mumbled into the crook of his arm, which he was resting his head on while it was curled around his legs.

"Oh, that's no problem," he replied, "I figured you might want to wear something other than that other ill-fitting junk you were wearing... where did you get those clothes, by the way? They didn't seem like they were... yours. Since they didn't fit, and all."

"Oh, I stole them," Percival replied, "Needed to get rid of the clothes with the blood on them."

"...Mmmmmmaybe don't steal anything else while you're living here, alright?" he said, awkwardly taking another sip of his tea. It was starting to get down to the dregs, now.

"Wasn't planning on it." Percival said.

"Good," Newt replied, "Oh- that reminds me. Do you by any chance know somebody named... Gellert Grindelwald?" 

Percival practically sprang up out of his curled position, his eyes wild with fear, "Did you come into contact with him? Did he hurt you?!"

"What, no, no-" he spluttered, "He's just popped up in our system when we ran some dental records, for a recent murder.... you _do_ know him, then?"

"Unfortunately," Percival was getting very anxious now, and he was rubbing his face vigorously, "Grindelwald was the vampire who turned me."

"400 years ago?" he asked. 

"Yeah... that's about how long ago," Percival said, his hands were slightly shaking now.

"So... how _old_ is he, exactly?" he asked hesitantly.

"At least a thousand years older than me," Percival laughed nervously, "I don't even know how old that fucker is, he never told me."

"What did he _do_ to you?" he dared to ask, not sure if he should be pushing this any further.

"Ohhhhhh not much," Percival said sarcastically, "just held hostage, tortured, and then turned into a nocturnal immortal killing machine without my consent. Just the usual."

"That's... awful," he said, setting down his mug, "I'm so sorry you had to go through that."

"Well, it's about 400 years too late for an apology, but... thank you nonetheless." Percival said.

"Have you heard from him recently?" he asked.

"No, god no," Percival blurted, "He turned me while I was on a trip to Spain, but immediately after I regained some sort of self I immigrated to the states to try and put as much distance between him and myself. I've lived in New York since, but... as far as I'm aware, he's still terrorizing Europe. You think he's in the states?"

"In New York in particular, yes," he explained, "We've connected him to a murder that happened earlier this week. He left a very visible -and very traceable- set of tooth imprints on a corpse that he tore completely to shreds."

"Wait- you actually _matched_ him to a dental record?" Percival asked in shock.

"Yes, I guess he had some dental work done in Norway in the 1700s, because that's where we traced it to," he said. 

"Christ," Percival heaved a deep sigh, "what a dumbass. I've lived here for 350 years and I've never managed to retain any sort of permanent record anywhere."

"Do you know why he could have... ripped the body apart?" he asked.

"To scare people probably," Percival waved him off, "That's what he does. He gets off on it."

"That's...gross," he winced, "Well, Tina's got the NYPD and the FBI out in full force looking for him. We also found a recent photo, and he looks fairly easy to spot, so I'm sure they'll bring him in in no time."

Percival did another nervous laugh, which shook Newt to his core, "Oh, you're not gonna just _bring him in_. You're gonna have to kill him. He won't go quietly. People will die."

"I'll... text Tina," he pulled out his phone and began typing, "I'll let her know that he could be dangerous."

"Can we get off of this subject?" Percival asked, wrapping himself back up in his blankets.

"Yes, I'm sorry," he sent off the text to Tina and set his phone back on the coffee table, "I'm sorry that I brought all of this back up."

Percival didn't reply, but he did seem to relax a little bit. The two of them were sitting there in silence again, the documentary still playing at a quiet volume. Newt reached over to pull some blankets over to himself, and Percival nudged himself halfway into his lap. They sat like that until Newt's eyelids became heavy and tired from the body heat, and he drifted off into a relaxed sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you again to those who are commenting and kudos-ing~


	11. Weekend Retreat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter 11, otherwise known as: newt finally enjoys his weekend

He woke up in the same position he had fallen asleep in on the couch, and he had a bit of a nasty crick in his neck from it slumping over in his sleep. Percival was still dead asleep, and would probably be asleep for the remainder of the day, so Newt decided to make the most of his time off. It wasn't that Percival was annoying, it was just nice to have time to himself over the weekends. He hadn't had a free weekend in a few months.

He had some errands to run, and he desperately needed groceries, so he made a plan for what he was going to accomplish today. First, he needed to go and get groceries before traffic got too bad. Second, take the groceries home and unpack them. Third, he needed to run down to the pharmacy and pick up some band-aids and cold medicine. Fourth, he wanted to go and visit Queenie and Jacob. The rest of the day was up to debate.

Up first on the list: groceries. He gathered up all of his reusable grocery bags and climbed into his car, ready to skirt around the morning traffic. Somehow he managed to avoid the highway congestion by taking a few strategic side roads. Thankfully, the grocery store wasn't too busy, but he anticipated it to get busier in the coming weeks because of Christmas. He got all of the groceries he needed, all in less than two hours, and he utilized the side roads again to avoid the lunch rush traffic.

Second on the list: taking care of the groceries...without waking up Percival. Part of him kind of wanted to test the limits on how light of a sleeper he was, but the other part of him didn't want to come into contact with an irritable, sleep deprived vampire who was twice as strong as he was. He doubted that Percival would hit him but he still didn't want to be rude and wake him. After loading all of his bags from his car into his apartment, he swiftly and silently put everything away, and then checked to make sure that Percival was still asleep. He hadn't moved an inch.

Third on the list: go to the pharmacy. He bundled himself up in his favorite scarf and beanie, grabbed his backpack (with his laptop just in case), and prepared for the impending walk, since there was a pharmacy about five or six blocks west from his building, and it wouldn't be worth it to drive since traffic downtown was abysmal anyway. The only people who drove downtown were taxis, tourists, and wealthy business men. Foot traffic downtown was busy since it was lunch time, and everyone that worked down there was out on their lunch break. He had to break through several large crowds of high-heeled business women just to get through the crosswalks and not get run over. He was delighted to find that the pharmacy was relatively empty, and they had the heating system blasting. There was something about shopping in a quiet pharmacy that was therapeutic. He took his time walking through the aisles, making sure there was nothing else he needed, grabbed his cold medicine and band-aids, and went to check out. Their computers were a little slow, and the cashier that was checking him out was a sweet little old lady (bless her heart), so the amount of time he had to awkwardly stand at the counter in silence was a little more than he had anticipated. Still, it eventually ended, and he was able to stuff his plastic bag with his purchases inside of his backpack and head out of the door.

Fourth on the list: the bakery. He wanted to visit with Queenie and Jacob, and he didn't have anything else to do for the rest of the day. Not to mention he was practically starving at this point. He took his time walking to the bakery from the pharmacy, partially because he wanted to enjoy his walk, but mostly to avoid slipping on the large patches of ice that hadn't been salted yet that morning. By the time he had reached the bakery, the lunch rush had calmed down, and even though there were a few customers inside, it was still relatively quiet. 

"Heyyyy, Newt!" Jacob called from behind the counter, "Haven't seen you in a hot minute. what can I get you?"

He looked over the menu board for a few seconds before answering, "I'll have a matcha latte and a piece of cinnamon bread, please." He decided to try something new.

"Ahh, excellent choice, my dude," Jacob said with a smile, beginning to prepare his drink, "So how've you been lately?"

"Eh, you know, the usual murders lately," he said, "I only have about a week left until the semester is done, though. Is Queenie in today?"

"No, Queenie's out sick today, unfortunately," Jacob yelled over the screech of the steamer, "She stayed home with the cats. You're having a quiet weekend, I hope?"

"Thank god, yes. This is the first weekend I've had in a long with without any work." he said.

"Excellent," Jacob grinned, handing him his steaming hot latte and his piece of bread on a small plate, "I hope to see you in more often over the break."

"I can't promise anything," Newt chuckled, picking up his food, "I'm going to stay and poke around on the internet a bit, so I'll let you get back to work now."

Jacob waved him off with a huge grin, sweeping back into the kitchen behind the counter. Newt looked around for a place to sit, and noticed that his favorite table was open. The fireplace was crackling and the chair was toasty warm when he sat down. As much as he loved being alone, a part of him was sad that he could never bring Percival here. He would love their selection of teas, but sadly the bakery isn't open when it's dark outside. He made a mental note to take him to one of the late-night coffee shops downtown sometime. 

He cracked open his laptop, took a sip of his drink (which was the _perfect_ temperature, thank you, Jacob), and opened up his internet browser. 

**Recent Vampire Sightings in New York City** , he typed into the search bar and hit enter. 

At first, nothing much popped up, just the usual crackpot conspiracy theorist blogs, but as he scrolled further he had found something interesting. It was a blog post on a social networking site. He dug a little deeper into the profile, and it appeared to be from a teenager who lived in New York, and he was into some pretty... dark things. Most of his blog was artsy black & white photos taken on a shitty iPhone (with some polaroids scattered in for variety), but there was one text post that broke it up. 

 

"

**credenceanddistrust** posted:

went into the city to take pics today, got some good shots in the alleys.

gome crusty weird dude came up to me and asked about my camera, his eyes creeped me out. he might have had some sort of tooth implant, because his teeth were super sharp??

got the fuck outta there super quick, fucker might have been some sort of vampire lmao

new pics coming soon xoxo

"

 

He bookmarked the post and the user's profile page, along with the teenager's photography contact information, for use at a later date. He found a few more blog posts that could point to sightings, but ultimately the photography blog was the best lead he had. He looked through the photos on the blog to see if he could spot any sign of Grindelwald (or even Percival, for that matter), but then he quickly checked himself and did a quick search to see if vampires could show up in photos. The internet seemed to be pretty wishy-washy on that one and he decided to save that question for Percival when he got home. 

He also took the time to brush up on the mythology of vampires, and all of their different depictions in popular culture. He probably spent a good three hours reading through article after article. He even ventured onto some educational databases and skimmed through some critical essays. What he was reading was absolutely _convoluted_ , but... it was all lining up. At least, the stuff he had personally encountered. 

Being averse to daylight and only awake at night, check. Drinking blood for sustenance, check. Immortality and prolonged youth, check. Violent tendencies (at least for some) and super strength, check. There were some other common associations that he had personally disproven, but for the most part his beliefs were proven true. He would have to ask Percival some more questions (he had made a list), the more he could understand about him and the others, the better. 

Out of the corner of his eye he could see Jacob starting to wipe off the tables and stack the chairs up, so he decided to pack it up for the afternoon. He bundled himself back up, packed up his things, and waved goodbye to Jacob before he set off towards home. It was just bordering on being 5pm, and the sun was starting to go down. He stopped by a bodega on his way back to his apartment and picked up a bottle of cheap wine and a few snacks. He liked to keep a "rainy day" stash. He kept it just in case he couldn't go out, so that he could get drunk and eat snacks while watching shitty romance movies. 

He spotted Percival as he walked through the door, and he was still asleep, except he was stirring slightly. He figured that he was just about to wake up, so he didn't bother being as silent as he possibly could. He put his wine and snacks away, and plopped his backpack down on the table to take out his purchases from the pharmacy. The rustling of the plastic bag inside was all it took to get Percival to wake up, because he glanced over the top of his bag to see his head poking up from the couch. 

"Sorry if I woke you," he said over his shoulder.

"No, it's fine," Percival grumbled, "it was almost time for me to wake up, anyways. Were you gone all day?"

"Yeah, I had some errands to run," he replied, "do you want anything for dinner at all?"

"Mmmmm, tea." Percival sat up and yawned, rubbing at his face.

"Sounds good to me," Newt smiled, "Oh! I should probably show you how to work the kettle, in case you ever want tea when I'm gone or not awake."

Percival got up and shuffled toward the direction of the kitchen, and Newt spent ten or so minutes poking and prodding at the kettle, showing him which buttons to press.

"Back in my day we had to boil the water ourselves," he grumbled, poking at a few buttons.

"Pff, you sound like such an old man," Newt snorted.

"I _am_ an old man," Percival narrowed his eyes, "I'm four hundred years old for god's sake."

Newt fixed himself a sandwich for dinner while Percival puttered around with the kettle for a little before finally figuring it out. He pointed him in the direction of the cupboards in which the tea and mugs resided, and then finished up making his food. He settled himself on the couch, and flipped through Netflix while Percival was still in the kitchen fixing his tea. A few minutes later, he returned, appearing to be slightly more awake than before and with a very strong cup of green tea. 

"Do you like any other kinds of tea?" he asked, "Other than green, I mean."

Percival sat in thought for a minute, "Mmm, I haven't really tried any other tea than green."

"Hm," he hummed through a bite of his sandwich, "You might like fruity teas. There are some that you can even drink with ice, too."

In that moment, he had reach Peak British. It didn't get any more British than sitting on the couch and figuring out which kind of tea someone would like. He finished his sandwich and took care of his plate.

"I have a few questions to ask you... about vampires," he asked, taking his place back down on the couch, "If you don't mind answering them, that is. You don't have to."

Percival shrugged, "You can ask me all the questions you want, kid."

He hated the nickname, but he ignored it, "Can vampires show up in photos?"

"Photographs are basically just tiny mirrors that capture images on film, so no," he answered.

"What about digital pictures?" he asked, "There was a photo of Grindelwald that we found that was probably taken with a newer model iPhone."

"How do digital photos work?" 

"Exactly like analog photography, except the mirror is replaced with an image sensor chip," he answered.

"Is the image sensor chip made with silver?"

He pulled out his phone and did a quick search, "No... I don't think so."

"Then we can show up in digital photographs. Analog cameras use mirrors made of silver, and if you're familiar enough with vampirism, you'll know that we're extremely averse to silver." Percival took a sip of his tea.

"Hm," Newt drummed his fingers on the dimmed screen of his phone, "Another question- are all vampires inherently violent or is it an acquired trait?"

"No, we're not all inherently violent, "Percival sounded personally offended, "and what do you mean by acquired?"

"Well, certain behavioral patterns in humans -and i assume this is the same for vampires- are acquired through parental figures, environment, socialization, and some could even argue genetics. I'm strongly of the belief that children are not inherently doomed to become their parents, they're their own people and they shape and create their own personalities through behavior. From what I've observed, you're nothing like your creator. Even though you've committed violence out of necessity, you hate committing it, and you're a very gentile and caring person." he didn't mean to go off on a tangent, but here he was.

Percival seemed to redden a bit at the compliment, "Well... I think you might be right. Grindelwald always wanted to groom me to be a sort of... partner in crime, of sorts. He wanted me to help him do his bidding, but obviously... I escaped that."

"It's a good thing you did," he said, "you seem much happier living a quieter life."

"That's all I ever wanted," Percival brought his knees up to his chest and rested his head on them, "I never wanted to hurt anyone or be involved in any of this vampire shit. Too late now, I guess."

"Well, I think you're a good person nevertheless," he said, "One last question, to lighten the mood. Can vampires get drunk?"

Percival made an ugly snorting sound, "Of _course_ we can get drunk... if your blood alcohol level is high enough."

The both of them sat there in a fit of ugly laughter for a few minutes before everything dissolved back into silence again. Newt flipped on an action movie and covered the two of them in the blanket. 

 

\---

 

A small stream of sunlight coming from underneath the curtains woke him up on Sunday morning, and he quickly got up and fixed it so that it wouldn't shine through and burn Percival, who was dead asleep. He didn't have any plans for the day, so he stayed in his pajamas and settled himself back on the couch with his laptop and some headphones to watch some YouTube videos. Before he knew it, lunch time had rolled around, and he got up and silently warmed up some leftovers and fixed himself a fresh cup of coffee. 

A few hours of dicking around on the internet later, he was bored. He took a look around the faculty blackboard site and took a look at which classes he was teaching next semester. Another Advanced Criminology course, another Intro to Criminology course (ugh), and course titled Abnormal Behaviors. That last class should be interesting, he was actually kind of excited for it. Even though he had an entire month off, he opened up a word document and started outlining a rough syllabus of what he was going to cover. The first two classes already had a syllabus made for them, he just recycled the same one every semester and only changed things if he thought it was necessary, so he was glad that he didn't have any work to do for those. 

He wrote down some notes for his Abnormal Behaviors class, making a list of some possible topics to bring up. Three hours later, he had a fairly solid outline. He would have to email one of the psychology professors for some constructive criticism, just to make sure everything looks alright. That could wait until later this winter break, though. Now he was left with nothing else to do again. He thought about the grades he would have to put into the system, but the college didn't allow him to do that until the week after final exams are done. He poked around YouTube again, ate some snacks, and generally just sat around for another few hours until Percival started stirring beside him. 

Percival gave a few twitches for a few more minutes until he finally lifted his head up, wiping the bleariness out of his eyes.

"Have you been sitting here this whole time?" Percival asked, his voice gravely with sleepiness. 

"I got up to make coffee and eat food... once," he admitted, shutting the lid to his laptop, "I didn't really have any other plans for today, though."

"Oh," Percival sat up, his back cracking when he stretched. 

"Hey, I'm uh... sorry for keeping you cooped up in here," he said, "I was thinking of going out for a walk tonight, if you wanted to go with me?"

"That sounds nice, actually," Percival turned to check the amount of light under the curtains, "Although I would like to wait until the sun is completely down."

"That's alright with me," he smiled, resting his feet back up on the coffee table and opening up the lid of his laptop.

He clicked around in his email for a beat before he noticed that Percival was staring at the screen in confusion. 

"What is that?" he finally asked. 

"What do you mean?" Newt turned back to him in confusion.

"That... screen thing. Is it a small television?"

"...kind of? It's called a computer," he replied, "You can access the internet on it. That's... a topic to teach you on another day."

He figured that trying to teach a 400 year old vampire what the internet is going to be just as bad as trying to teach his 55 year old mother how to use a smartphone, and he decided to try and procrastinate that as long as possible. Although, Percival did seem to have a steep learning curve, so maybe it wouldn't be as bad. He decided to take advantage of the fact that Percival was staring at his screen over his shoulder, so he showed him some classic cat videos. He didn't seem phased, so either he didn't think they were entertaining, or he didn't like cats. Who doesn't like cats? Vampires, apparently.

It took Percival a few more hours to completely wake up, and he left to go and take a shower and change before they left. As he exited the bathroom after getting changed, he sat down on the couch to tie his shoes up, and Newt noticed that Percival smelled like his body wash. That made him weirdly really happy for some reason. He pulled on his coat and turned to see that Percival already had his leather jacket on.

"Do you need a warmer coat?" he asked.

"Nah, I'm good," Percival answered.

"Ah, should've figured... vampire and all," he shuffled around awkwardly, "You sure you don't want a scarf or something?"

Percival reached out and took the gold and grey scarf he was handing him, "I'm only taking this because it smells like you," he said sarcastically. Newt had a feeling that he was serious, though.

"I keep forgetting about the smell thing," he said as he shut and locked the door behind the both of them, "Do I really smell _that_ good?"

"Yes," Percival wrapped his scarf around himself as they walked down the stairs together, "You smell like warm honey. You should stop using that terrible aftershave, by the way. It masks your smell."

"My brother gave me that aftershave," he said, slightly offended.

"Well, it's bad. Get an unscented one." Percival said bluntly as they walked out into the cold night.

"Well, I'm sorry that your nose is so picky," he snapped back, "But, if it really does bother you, then I'll switch to something else."

"Thank you," Percival buried his nose in the scarf, "You never told me where we were going."

"Oh! Sorry," he apologized, "I was going to take you to a store that I like to pick out some different flavors of tea. You know, so you won't have to drink the same old thing every time."

"Hmm," Percival seemed to hum in agreement, "Are stores open this late here?"

"Pff, this is _New York_ ," he scoffed, "There's foot traffic at all hours in busier areas, mostly in more populated areas, so they tend to stay open later. You've lived here for a while, right? How've you not noticed?"

"When you're on the verge of constantly starving to death, you don't tend to pay attention to that sorta stuff," he answered.

"Well, now that you're not starving, you can start paying attention," he said, pulling out his phone and typing in the directions.

They reached their destination in about ten minutes, as it wasn't too far away from his building, and they were walking rather fast. The familiar orange glow of the salt lamps hit them as soon as they entered through the door, and an older gentleman greeted them from behind the counter. The shop smelled of incense and was a tiny natural food store, and was run by an old man and his wife who lived in the apartment above it. They sold quite a selection of items for being in such a tight space, and the shelves were stacked (literally) to the ceiling, and some of them could only be reached by a rolling ladder. He led Percival to the back of the store, which housed the shelf that displayed a number of different flavors and types of tea, both bagged and loose leaf. 

"This is... a lot of tea," Percival craned his neck to see to the top of the shelf, clearly overwhelmed.

Newt pointed him in the direction of the different types of green tea, and to the fruity teas. Percival stood there and stared, occasionally leaning in closer to inspect a label, for nearly twenty full minutes. Newt left him there after a while, and perused through the store, picking up a few random ingredients that he knew he was out of. He walked to the front of the store and grabbed a small plastic shopping basket, determined to not break any of the many small glass spice bottles he was now carrying. He wandered back over to Percival, who had about ten different bags and boxes full of tea in his arms by the time he was done looking. He dumped him in the shopping basket and looked very pleased with himself.

"You want to look at anything else?" he asked him.

"No, I think I'm done," Percival answered, glancing back at the tea shelf to make sure he hadn't forgotten anything he wanted to try, "Do I owe you anything?"

"No, don't worry about it," he waved him off, walking up to the counter and pulling out his wallet to pay for their purchases.

They walked out with one paper bag full to the brim with all different kinds of tea (and some spices). 

"Hey, have you ever heard of smoothies?" Newt asked, out of the blue.

"Hmm?" Percival looked confused.

"We should get smoothies," he handed the paper bag to Percival and took out his phone to find the nearest smoothie shop that was open. He was fully aware that it was below freezing outside, but god damn it he wanted a smoothie. 

Percival was incredibly skeptical of what was inside of the cup of cold red goop, but upon finding out that it was just blended fruit, he seemed content. The two of them sat on a freezing cold park bench in silence, just enjoying each other's company. Newt was starting to think that having constant company wasn't a bad thing after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm running out of cool chapter titles
> 
> credence runs a goth aesthetic blog and y'all can fight me (i'm sorry for the completely uncreative username lmao rip)
> 
> anyway, i'm thinking of adding another chapter from percival's perspective soon! i feel like a nice break will be fun dksjfhd
> 
> happy holidays, everyone!


	12. Equivocal Death

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as a heads up, the text in the bold is meant to be read as texts/messages. enjoy!

This was the last week until winter break, and then finally he would have a decent amount of time to himself. All he had to do this week was administer two final exams, and then grade them later in the week. He was glad that he didn’t have to worry about putting together any presentations, but the nagging anxiety of final grades was eating at him. He wasn’t excited to have to potentially fail some students. Granted, he tried his best to teach them, but some students have a harder time retaining information than others.

Monday’s exams went pretty smoothly; nobody freaked out or had a mental breakdown, and he overheard a lot of students talking quite confidently as they left. Tuesday’s exams, however, were another story. Half of the class was tardy, and two students never even showed up (and they didn’t even bother to email him with a good excuse). He could tell before the exam period was even over that most of them half-assed it. He could understand that life-skill classes were a bore, but they could have at least put the minimum amount of effort into the final.

After Tuesday, his class exams were done with, but he still drove into his office on Wednesday to try and get some grading done ahead of time. He sat there for five hours, barely getting past the first half of his enormous pile of papers, before he heard a _Ping!_ from the inside of his bag. He decided to call it a day and packed all of his papers into his shoulder bag to take home. As he was locking the door to his office, he glanced at his phone.

 

**Tina: you able to come down to my office?**

**Newt: I’ll be there in 10 minutes.**

For once, he wasn’t dreading having to drive down to the FBI, partially because he didn’t have to drive all the way from home, but mostly out of a morbid curiosity regarding the most recent vampire murder. He also had some leads to present to Tina. She was waiting for him with a guest badge outside the main employee entrance, tapping her foot with impatience.

“What are you doing standing outside, it’s _freezing_ ,” he said as he walked up to her, shivering through his coat.

“You’re late _well_ past your promise of ten minutes,” she tapped her watch before slapping his guest badge to his chest and scanning them both into the building. 

“Oh, sorry… traffic,” he said, “What have you got for me?”

“I’ve been trying to look up that Grindelwald guy for the last couple days,” she said, leading him through the halls towards her office.

“And?” he asked, the anticipation of her response was killing him.

“And,” she started, opening the door to her office, “I couldn’t find anything. Not a single thing on the guy, the dental records are the only thing we could find. Other than that, the dude’s a total enigma.”

“Shit,” he cursed in disappointment, “Oh, wait! I have something, I’ve been meaning to tell you!”

He dug his phone out of his pocket, pulling open the bookmarked photography blog post.

“You think this post is about Grindelwald?” Tina asked, squinting at his phone to read the text.

“The time stamps and locations match up _exactly_ ,” he added, “I’m pretty confident that it’s a match.”

“Hmm,” Tina mouthed over the words in the post for a moment before pulling out a pen and a pad of paper, “Well, I’ll look into it. I’ll write down the information to pass along to the tech team to pick apart, and we’ll find this kid and bring him in for an interview.”

“Good,” he said, “But please don’t scare the kid, Tina.”

“I can’t make any promises,” she joked, ripping off the piece of paper she had written on and tossing it over to a pile that he presumed was full of future deliveries.

“That was all I had, sadly,” he continued, “I haven’t interviewed any other people in my apartment yet, but I’ve got all of winter break to do that.”

“Speaking of your job,” Tina leaned back into her desk chair, “That day that I may or may not have interrupted your class-“

“Which you did rather rudely,” he interrupted.

“What was with that giant hickey?” she flashed him an evil grin, “You finally land a man?”

“Uhhhhhhhhhh,” he didn’t expect to be put on the spot like this, “…sort of?”

“The fuck’s that supposed to mean?” she asked, still grinning.

“More like a… roommate,” he said hesitantly. The less he could divulge about this, the better.

“Newt, your apartment is a _one bedroom_ ,” she pushed, “You know it’s okay to talk to your best friend Tina about your live-in friend with benefits, right?”

“I, uh- I have to go,” he picked up his things and glared back at Tina from the doorway, “You should also know that’s it’s okay to mind your own business. Also, call me when you get the photography blogger in for an interview, I have some questions to ask him myself.”

With that, he tossed his guest badge behind him, in the general direction of Tina’s desk, and swept out of the building and back to his car. He sat behind his steering wheel for a minute, the blush from his cheeks keeping the cold at bay. He didn’t know why he was embarrassed; maybe it was the sudden nature of the questions being dumped on him. But, he didn’t  _deny_ being with Percival. He didn’t exactly have an alibi, either.

He was a fraction of an inch from putting his keys into the ignition when his phone let out another _Ping!_.

 

**Tina: have fun with your new roommate ;))))**

 

He briefly considered blocking Tina’s number out of spite.

 

**Newt: Fuck off.**

 

He tossed his phone back into his pocket and started his car, driving back home in bitter embarrassment.

When he got home, Percival was just beginning to make himself a cup of tea.

“Oh, hello,” Percival greeted him as he walked in, “You want some tea too?”

Newt heaved out a sigh, “Yeah, I could do with a nice cup of tea, actually.”

Percival squinted at him, “…you’re stressed again. What is it this time?”

“Oh, nothing,” he wanted to avoid this topic as much as humanly possible, “Just… the usual work stuff. Murder and everything.”

“Hmm,” Percival hummed as he poured the boiling water into a couple of mugs, “Maybe you should invest in less murder, then.”

“You’re probably right,” he sighed as he pulled the milk out of the fridge and began fixing his cup.

He fiddled around with his tea until it was to his exact liking, and he plopped himself down on the couch with a large fuzzy blanket. He needed warmth and comfort right now. He was so engrossed in his own frantic thoughts that he hadn’t noticed Percival sit down next to him until he heard him take a rather loud sip of his tea.

“You’re still stressed,” Percival said from behind his mug.

“I have a lot on my plate right now,” he said.

“I can see that,” Percival added.

“Speaking of stress,” he said, “when is the next time you need to feed?”

“What do you mean, ‘speaking of stress’?” Percival asked.

“Well, when you bit me you…” he waved his hand around, searching for the right words, “made me all loopy.”

“Oh, that. That’s just a calming effect, like I’ve said before, it helps with sedation,” he said, “and I shouldn’t need to feed for a few more weeks.”

“Hmm,” he hummed in response, “I was just… wondering.”

“You want me to get rid of your stress,” Percival stated flatly.

“What? No, no, that’s not what I meant,” he sighed in resignation before continuing, “It’s just… a friend was giving me shit for having that hickey you gave me a while ago. She thinks we’re fucking.”

Percival snorted, “Pfft, that’s great.”

“Modern fantasy fiction has really perpetuated this stereotype, hasn’t it?” he scrunched up his face in embarrassment. 

“Boy, you’re tellin’ me,” Percival said, “It seems like every human woman on the planet has some sort of weird vampire fetish. Besides, not all vampires are straight anyway. Personally I don’t think anyone is out of the question. A fuck is a fuck, regardless if food is involved or not.”

“I really didn’t need to know that, but thank you for sharing,” he said sarcastically, “and yes, I agree that the vampire sex fetish thing is… weird.”

“Well, regardless, I still very much appreciate your friendship,” it was said in a joking tone, but Newt could tell that he was being serious, “Maybe I should meet your friend and tell her about the state of our friendship myself.”

“That’s… not necessary,” he said, “and besides, you’re still sort of a wanted murderer according to the department she works for.”

“What do you mean ‘sort of’?” Percival asked.

“Well, I mean… they technically haven’t linked you to it,” he replied, “The only person you’ve admitted it to has been me.”

“Hm, you have a point,” Percival said before diverting the conversation, “You still want me to get rid of your stress, right?”

“What do you mean?” Newt asked, confused.

“Like I said, I don’t think anyone is out of the question,” Percival said coolly, “if that’s what you want.”

“I, u-uh…” his face reddened, “I’ll… get back to you on that one. I’m going to go to bed.”

“Suit yourself, good night,” Percival waved him off before turning back to the TV.

If he wasn’t stressed before, he was sure as shit stressed now. On one hand, he sort of hated himself for living up to the very cliché they had just talked about. The fact that he thought a vampire was hot just proved almost every young adult fantasy fiction author right. On the other hand, there was something about meeting an attractive older stranger (that was attracted to him first, mind you) that was inherently sexy. If he got involved with Percival that way, Tina was never going to let him forget that she was right. 

He would have to debate this with himself later, because for now, he was tired and he needed to go to bed. He ended up lying awake for four hours before caving and just laying there reading on his phone until the early hours of the morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i would have made the texts more convincing and actually faked phone screenshots, but i know that adding in images is a pain in the ass when reading on mobile, so i didn't want to subject you to that torture
> 
> also i headcanon that tina totally texts him forensic science memes at 2am


	13. Traceability

He finally managed to go to sleep around six in the morning, and he slept well past noon and into the afternoon. He woke up feeling like absolute death. His eyes were caked shut with crust and there was a drool stain on his brand new pillow case. He had also inexplicably dropped his phone off the side of his bed and cracked the screen. Great.

Despite his overwhelming exhaustion, he still knew that he had the rest of the day to do whatever he wanted. He also felt the need to apologize to Percival. Running off on him like that without having an actual adult conversation was rather rude of him. He had never been outright questioned about his sexual preference like that, and it sort of scared him. Well, that was partially a lie. He had always (at least in his adult life) been confident about his identity. He knew he was attracted to men, and he always felt sure of himself in that department. It was the _feelings_ part that he was terrible at. Healthy human communication was... not his strong suit, to put it lightly.

He didn't get up and around until at least 4 in the afternoon, and he was absolutely starving. He did himself the favor of getting dressed into some real clothes (not pajamas), and he shuffled out into the kitchen to make himself some coffee. Percival was still technically asleep, but he could tell that he was beginning to wake up because he was doing his usual pre-wakeup twitching. He felt kind of guilty that he was still making him sleep on is uncomfortable couch, and he would have no problem letting him sleep on the other side of his bed. His body might have something else to say about that, though. 

He managed to drag himself around the kitchen for a few more minutes before Percival started to fully wake up, Newt heard him groan in protest.

"Urgh," Percival sat up and stretched out, joint cracking, "Wait, aren't you supposed to be at work?"

"Oh, I have the rest of the month off," he took a sip of his coffee while rifling through some papers on his table, "I made coffee, if you want some. It's over there in the pot."

Percival's hair was stuck up in several odd angles, which honestly looked fucking adorable. He stretched for a few minutes, his joints reacting in audible protest, before finally uncovering himself and shuffling over to where Newt was situated in the kitchen. Newt poured him a small mug of plain black coffee and scooted it over to him. He picked it up and sniffed it once before taking a tentative sip, immediately scrunching his face up in dislike. 

"There are many more enjoyable ways of drinking that, by the way," Newt grinned as he sat down at the kitchen table, "If you ever decide to not burn up in the daytime I'll take you to my favorite cafe a few blocks down."

"That's not likely to happen," Percival said sarcastically, handing his cup of coffee back to Newt who gladly accepted it.

"I have a bit of work to finish up tonight but I thought we'd go for a bit of a walk after I'm done," he paused, "...if you're up for it."

"I'm always up for leaving the house," Percival replied, "Even better if _you're_ there."

"You flatter me," Newt said flatly before smiling and returning to his enormous stack of exams. 

The remainder of the exams that he had left to grade actually went by rather quickly, to his surprise. He thought he'd be there for a solid five or six hours, but he ended up getting them done in about three. When he had finished, he sat and tapped his pen for a minute, debating on where the destination would be for their walk. Maybe they would wander around a bit and try to find a late-night cafe that served something other than black coffee. Percival might like tea lattes. 

Speaking of Percival, he was starting to get rather impatient; Newt could hear his foot tapping against the hardwood of his floors, he was dressed and ready to go as soon as possible. Newt got up and began to put his shoes on, and he could see Percival get up and start to pace, looking anxious.

"You know patience is a virtue, right?" Newt asked, half-joking. 

"What?" Percival whipped around to face him, confused. 

"You keep pacing and fidgeting," he pointed out, "Are you anxious to get out of the house or something?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Percival stood stock still, his arms crossed stubbornly.

"Percival, I'm a criminologist," Newt sighed, "I literally get _paid_ to analyze behavior. Well, that's an aspect of it, at least."

Percival squinted at him, "Mmm. I don't know what it is, something feels off. It's making me jumpy."

"Hm," Newt knitted his eyebrows together, "Well, maybe we can fins something out about that on our walk."

Percival seemed to agree, so Newt slipped on his coat and some warm gloves. Percival grabbed his scarf before he could get ahold of it, so he decided on sliding a beanie on over his ears instead. The two of them ventured out onto the icy sidewalks, carefully stepping in unison to avoid slipping and falling. Newt didn't have any direction in particular he needed to go, but he led them in the general direction of the neighborhood he knew housed some quirky late-night establishments.

He glanced over at Percival, who seemed to have his nose in the air, and judging by his face, he did not like it. 

"Do you... smell something?" Newt questioned.

"Yeah, it smells fucking rank," Percival growled.

"Well, if it's any consolation, New York usually smells like piss anyway," he offered.

A barely-there smile appeared on Percival's face for a brief moment, "Hmm, no, it's not like a piss kind of stink. It's...different. I recognize it, but I can't place my finger on it right now. Get back to me in a day or two, maybe I'll have figured it out then."

"Hmm," Newt hummed, "How far can you smell things, anyway?"

"If the smell is strong enough, I can smell it from across the city," Percival said, "That's kind of how I tracked you down."

"That's creepy," Newt replied, "but at the same time kind of flattering."

Well, it's not like I asked to be a vampire with this ability," Percival said, nearly slipping on some ice. He regained his footing quickly, thankfully, and they continued their walk. 

"That's true," Newt replied, pulling his beanie further down on his head, trying to keep his ears warm. The wind chill was absolutely awful, and it was making his nose start to turn numb. He started walking a bit faster, albeit very carefully, because he needed to find somewhere warm to walk into before his face fell off. 

Percival walked much closer to him on this walk; whether it was to try and keep him warm or to try and prevent him from falling on his ass, he didn't know. Knowing how clumsy he was, probably the latter. Nevertheless, he welcomed the close contact, as he could feel Percival's body heat radiating off of him. He was surprised that he didn't see steam coming off of him it was so strong. 

They walked another block before the warm glow of an empty comic book shop descended on them from across the street. Newt grabbed Percival's arm and dragged him through the crosswalk before the light turned red. A blast of warm air hit his face before they were quickly greeted by a friendly bearded man behind the counter. He issued a hasty greeting at the man before disappearing in between a couple of shelves. Percival followed him with a curious look on his face.

"What are these...books?" Percival asked under his breath, clearly trying not to alert the man at the counter that he didn't know shit about comics.

"They're called comics," Newt quipped back at him, his voice no higher than a whisper, "they're like picture books but better."

He wasn't looking for anything in particular, and he really didn't have the shelf space for more books. The ever-tempting smell of new paper was drawing him in, though. 

"Why do humans have so many methods of entertainment? Doesn't it get overwhelming?" Percival asked, pulling the scarf down from his mouth.

"Sometimes. You really have to pick your battles," Newt answered, craning his neck up to try and see what was on top of the shelf, "What do vampires do for entertainment, anyway?"

Percival gave an exaggerated shrug, "Dunno. Blood, probably."

Newt gave a snicker, sliding a hardcover collected edition off the shelf and thumbing through it. He got about halfway through the book when a familiar sound came from his coat pocket. His phone.

 

 **Tina:** Got the blog boy. Be here tomorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hit a bit of a writing block in the middle of this so...that's why it's a little late haha. also i started college again whoop sorry this is such a short chapter


	14. Dichroism

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is another chapter from Percival's perspective!

He woke up with his eyes burning. He opened them to see light still streaming in from underneath the curtains. It felt wrong to be up this early, let alone in broad daylight. Something was off. His body shouldn’t be functioning during the day.

Then it hit him. That stench. That rotten, acidic, all-too-familiar stench. He had smelled it the other night when he was out with Newt, but he didn’t tell him who it had come from, even though he was perfectly aware of who the culprit was.

He knew it was Grindelwald. He could instantly recognize his filth from the day he turned him. Most vampire fledglings are supposed to recognize and connect to their masters- it’s even said that their smells are quite similar. But, early after Grindelwald had turned him, their relationship had soured. Grindelwald had only turned him to use him. He wanted to use him as a weapon to murder and further his own agenda, to eradicate humans. His master plan never made much sense, though, since vampires needed human blood in order to, well… live.

He hadn’t had the displeasure of smelling him in decades, however, not since he migrated to the States, and the fact that that smell had now followed him to New York was alarming. There was absolutely no reason for Grindelwald to move over to the states, unless… he was seeking out another fledgling. But… _why_ would he come all the way to America from Europe? It didn’t make any sense to him.

The sunlight coming from the windows was starting to make him feel sick to his stomach, which ripped his mind away from his thoughts. He heaved himself up on shaky arms, expecting to be greeted by Newt in the kitchen. However, his housemate was gone. The whole house still smelled like him, though, the strongest source coming from the large fuzzy blanket that his limbs were currently tangled in.

He got up to investigate why his human companion was gone, but initially he wasn’t presented with much. It took a bit of rifling around in the pile of paperwork strewn across the kitchen table to get some sort of sense of what he was out doing. There was a sticky note with a hand-scrawled jumble of symbols and letters, and then a name underneath. It said “Credence”. Off to the side was an arrow pointing to Grindelwald’s name. 

Laying close to the sticky note was a sheet of notes that were detailing times and dates of a recent murder, and notes on an encounter that this kid named Credence had had with him. What on earth was Grindelwald doing socializing with humans? This could be the human he’s trying to lure right into the palm of his hand. It made him angry to think that there was another person out there who might have to suffer through the abuse that he had had to endure.

His body was begging for sleep, all of his limbs ached and his leg muscles threatened to give out from under him. He wrapped the blanket further around himself to hold in his body heat, and he looked around for a different place to sleep that didn’t include the unfortunate reality of sunlight.

The living room of course had two small windows, which Newt had done is best to obstruct with light-blocking curtains. The bedroom also had a large window, which was still blocked by a curtain, but there was still a significant amount of light coming in. The only places left were the kitchen and the bathroom. Obviously he didn’t want to sleep on the linoleum, but besides that the kitchen was still connected to the living room, which was still decently lit. The only place left was the bathroom.

He shut himself inside and made sure to turn off all the lights and unplug the small nightlight that was above the counter. Finally, he was in pitch darkness; his eyelids stopped burning and his body started to relax. He climbed into the bathtub with his blanket and a small decorative cushion that he had brought with him and tried his best to get comfortable. It wasn’t much effort, thankfully, since his body was so exhausted.

However, as he lay there in the tub, his mind wouldn’t let him go to sleep. His eyes were met with nothing but blackness, but his thoughts were racing. He thought about Newt. His brash personality, his soft freckled face, and his perfect green eyes and curly golden hair. Anxiety clawed at his insides; he was afraid for him, afraid that he was hurtling down the path in Grindelwald’s direction. Newt was so smart, he had a level head on his shoulders, but… that didn’t make him any less reckless. Or stubborn.

He never thought that he would feel as connected to a human as he does with Newt, but here he was, laying in a bathtub with the lights off and worrying about his wellbeing. God, he wished he were home. He wanted to bury his head in the side of his neck and breathe him in. He wanted to feel his eyelashes brush up against the side of his cheek. He wanted to tangle their limbs together, to feel the warmth of the other man’s body heat adding to his own.

He curled himself into his blanket and let his eyelids flutter shut, hundreds of thoughts still swirling around in his head, his breathing slowing until the steady hum of the heating system lulled him into a deep sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the short hiatus, i was getting adjusted to a new semester!


	15. Interrogation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is back to Newt's perspective!

His drive over to the FBI was physically uneventful, but his mind continued to race uncontrollably. Does this Credence kid know that vampires exist? What if Tina finds out, what will the government do? If they find out he's hiding Percival in his apartment, he could be looking at quite a few years in prison. He was too pretty for prison.

He white-knuckled the steering wheel practically the entire hour and a half long drive, and he gripped his phone with almost the same intensity as he quickened his pace to get into the building and out of the cold. Tina met him at the entrance of the building, handing him his usual guest badge. She led him down the usual corridors, except this time avoiding her office, and turning into a sector of the building that he had never been before. The walls were stark and plain, and the bright lights reflected off of the polished white floors, making his eyes burn. 

He wondered why this particular part of the FBI needed to be kept this white and pristine. It probably had something to do with intimidation. The less the interviewee had to look at, the less they would be distracted. Made sense. 

The perfectly polished hallways smelled of cleaning supplies, like they had just freshly waxed the floors. It reminded him of the dentist's office, and quite honestly, it was making him feel ill. Tina briefly stopped at a water cooler and handing him a small paper cup of cold water, which he gladly accepted. 

The lights inside of the interrogation room were just as bright and blinding as they were in the hallway. Upon entering, he spotted a scrawny -yet surprisingly tall- teenager, with heavy black eyeliner and quite the unfortunate haircut. Or maybe he wanted it to be that way? He was unaware of things teenagers liked nowadays. The teenager was wearing a rather sour expression, and was drumming his dark nail-polish-clad fingers loudly on the table in front of him. Tina directed Newt to the seat next to hers and they both sat down.

Tina opened a folder and cleared her throat, "So, Credence, is that name correct?"

The teen looked at them apprehensively before answering, "...yes?"

"Great," Tina stated, pulling out a photo and sliding it towards him, "Do you recognize this man?"

Credence squinted at the grainy photo for a moment, "Yeah, that's the creep that tried hitting on me in an alley when I was trying to take photos." 

"So you definitely saw him on the night of the 7th?" Tina asked, flipping through her folder, "Did he want anything from you? Did he seem a little...off that night?"

"I mean, he definitely creeped me the fuck out... but I don't think he wanted anything besides dick," Credence crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair, "Why?"

"The man you encountered that night is Gellert Grindelwald, and he's a prime suspect in a recent homicide," Tina stared daggers into Credence, "a very _violent_ homicide at that. We need any scrap of information you might have on him, anything at all."

Credence glared at her, his open mouth hovering in thought for a minute, "...I remember seeing a tattoo? He might have had blood on his shirt, but I thought it was just a food stain or something."

Tina pulled out a pen and a piece of paper, "Do you recall any exact details about the tattoo? What it looked like?"

"Yeah, it was pretty simple. Looked like a shitty stick-and-poke prison tattoo or something," Credence rubbed at him chin in thought, "It was a triangle with a stick and a circle down the middle of it. Looked like some sort of cult shit, nothing _I've_ ever seen, though."

Tina had quickly jotted down a mockup of the image, and Credence confirmed it as the tattoo that he had seen, "You also said in your blog post that his eyes looked odd?"

"Yeah, one was all pale and nasty looking," he grimaced, "like he was blind in one eye or something."

Tina scribbled down a few more notes before gathering her folder and standing up, "Thank you, Credence, this will help us in gathering a description. I'm gonna go run this by my boss real fast, and then I'll be back. Newt, are you alright to stay here for a minute?"

Newt nodded, and Tina quickly rushed out of the room, leaving him alone with the moody teenager in complete silence. 

"...so are you some kinda twink or somethin'?" Credence looked at his hand to inspect his cuticles.

"W- wh- pardon?" he spluttered.

"You look like a twink," the teen stated flatly, "Why're you in here, anyway, you never asked me anything about this...Gumby dude."

"Grindelwald," Newt corrected bluntly, "and... I asked to be here. I was waiting until Tina left to ask you a few quick questions."

Credence simply raised his eyebrows at him, signaling him to continue.

"Did you see his teeth?" Newt asked, trying to keep his voice slightly hushed, suddenly acutely aware of the security cameras.

"What?" Credence lowered his voice to match his volume.

"His teeth, did they seem... unusually pointy? Like some sort of dental implant?" he asked, "Did he seem strangely pale? Did...did he smell you?"

Credence squinted his eyes at him, "Yeah, ... he smelled me. How did you know that? I just thought he was some sort of weirdo."

Newt simply shook his head in response, "I'm just trying to build a profile."

Just then, Tina walked through the heavy metal door, her folder now missing from her arms, "Alright, Credence you're good to go, sorry for keeping you so long. Your description is going to help us a lot."

Credence mumbled in response as Tina waved him out of the room, and another agent escorted Credence away from them and out of the building.

Tina raised her eyebrows at him, sighing as she rested her hands on her hips, "So, we're definitely certain that this guy committed the murder? A sketchy lookin' dude that happens to be hanging out in that general area, who also is conveniently covered in blood? Sounds like a murderer to me."

"The least we can do is bring him in for questioning," he said, albeit apprehensively, "can't be too careful."

Tina let him go home, and his drive was spent worrying about what Credence had told him. Grindelwald had smelled him. He had his scent. This couldn't be good. If he had any experience with this, it was that he knew that once a vampire gets ahold of a scent they like, they don't let it get away. Grindelwald would do absolutely anything to lure Credence into his grasp. He and Percival needed to come up with a plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have no clue what my timeline is in this story so i'm just gonna guess that the credence/grindelwald meeting happened on the 7th *shrugs*

**Author's Note:**

> here is my[ko-fi](http://ko-fi.com/geothebio) if you want to support me!


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